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PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAK 


The  Occult  and  Psychical  Sciences 


PSYCHICAL   PHENOMENA 
AND  THE  WAR 


BY 
HEREWARD   CARRINGTON,    Pn.D, 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  COMING  SCIENCE/'  "THE   PHYSICAL 
PHENOMENA  OF  SPIRITUALISM/'  "MODERN  PSYCHI- 
CAL   PHENOMENA/'    "YOUR    PSYCHIC    POWERS 
AND    HOW   TO   DEVELOP   THEM/'    "PHAN- 
TASMS  OF  THE  DEAD." 


American  Universities  Publishing  Company 

NEW  YORK 

1920 


COPTRIGHT,    1918, 

«?  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY,  In? 


DEDICATED 

TO    THOSE    BRAVE    SOULS    WHO    HAVE, 

WHILE  FIGHTING  FOR  THEIR  COUNTRY, 

SOLVED    THE    PROBLEMS    WITH 

WHICH  THIS  BOOK  DEALS 


PREFACE  TO  THE  NEW  EDITION 

THE  Great  War  was  at  its  height  when  the  present  vol- 
ume was  originally  published,  in  1918.  American  sol- 
diers were  pouring  into  France  at  the  rate  of  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  million  a  month,  but  they  had  not 
yet  been  in  action  on  a  vast  scale,  as  they  were  to  be 
shortly  afterwards — in  the  battles  of  the  Marne,  the 
Argonne,  etc.  It  is  because  of  this  fact  that  the  Great 
War  is  spoken  of  in  the  present  tense  throughout  the 
book — as  though  it  were  still  actually  being  waged, 
whereas  now  it  is  a  matter  of  history;  it  is  today  a 
thing  of  the  past — existing  only  in  the  memories  of 
those  who  shared  in  its  terror  and  its  glory,  or  marked 
by  the  graves  of  those  who  made  the  supreme  sacrifice 
in  France.  It  was  inevitable  that  any  book  which  dealt 
with  the  Great  War — which  was  written  at  the  time  of 
its  actual  occurrence — should  speak  of  it  in  this  man- 
ner, and  the  present  book  is  no  exception  to  the  rule. 
The  book  is  based  upon  letters,  experiences  and 
" cases"  from  the  front;  upon  observations  and  ex- 
periments made  at  the  time;  and  of  necessity  records 
such  cases  and  experiences  as  they  were  then  reported. 
Such  a  " reminder"  is  necessitated  by  the  republica- 
tion  of  a  book  such  as  the  present — which  contains 
nevertheless  (as  I  believe)  psychological  material  of 
considerable  interest  and  value,  and  constitutes  a  "hu- 
man document"  which  future  students  and  future  gen- 
erations would  do  well  to  study. 

Since  the  Armistice  and  the  conclusion  of  peace, 


PREFACE  TO  THE  NEW  EDITION 

several  books  have  appeared  dealing  with  the  psychol- 
ogy of  the  Great  War,  but  none  of  these  have  caused 
me  to  change  the  views  expressed  in  the  present  vol- 
ume— in  fact,  they  have  confirmed  them  in  a  remark- 
able degree.  Further  interviews  with  American  sol- 
diers have  also  tended  to  confirm  the  accuracy  of  the 
11  psychology  of  the  soldier" — contained  in  "Part  I." 
The  present  volume  may,  therefore,  be  regarded  as 
a  fairly  complete  and  accurate  summary  of  the  psy- 
chological and  psychical  aspects  of  the  Great  World 
War;  and,  save  for  the  fact  that  the  War  is  spoken 
of  throughout  as  still  being  waged — whereas  it  is  now 
a  matter  of  history — it  may  be  regarded  psychologi- 
cally as  accurate  as  when  the  book  first  appeared. 
With  these  remarks — which  were,  nevertheless,  neces- 
sitated, in  view  of  the  facts,  I  leave  the  book  to  speak 

for  itself. 

H.  C. 
March,  1920 


PREFACE 

THE  present  book  is  an  attempt  to  study  the  psycho- 
logical forces  at  work  in  the  present  world  war;  and 
for  this  purpose  I  have  divided  the  book  into  two  por- 
tions :  Part  I  dealing  with  psychology  proper, — applied 
to  the  minds  of  nations  and  of  individuals ;  Part  II  to 
psychical  or  supernormal  phenomena, — largely  of  a 
spiritistic  character, — which  have  been  observed  to  oc- 
cur at  various  times,  and  of  which  the  present  war  fur- 
nishes many  fresh  examples. 

Thus  Part  I  may  be  said  to  study  the  mind  of  the  sol- 
dier up  to  the  point  where  he  is  killed  in  action ;  while 
Part  II  continues  our  study  of  the  same  soldier  after 
his  death.  We  thus  extend  our  inquiry  into  the  realms 
of  the  vast  Beyond, — and  seek  to  bring  back  from  that 
Unknown  Land  definite  knowledge  of  those  who  so- 
journ there. 

•  •••••• 

Several  books  have  been  published  dealing  with  psy- 
chic phenomena  consequent  upon  the  great  war,  such 
as  Raymond;  Private  Dowding;  Gone  West,  etc.,  but 
these  books  are  strictly  limited  in  their  purview,  and 
do  not  attempt  to  survey  the  whole  field,  while  the  last 
two  mentioned  are  the  product  of  automatic  writing. 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  book  has,  of  course,  aroused  a  great 
deal  of  comment,  and  has  been  the  means  of  affording 
solace  to  many  who  have  been  bereaved  by  the  war.  I 
wish  to  acknowledge,  in  this  place,  my  indebtedness 
to  these  books,  for  having  suggested  to  me  the  compila- 


viii  PREFACE 

tion  of  the  present  volume ;  I  have  also  made  extracts 
from  the  books  in  Chapter  XI.  I  wish  also  to  acknowl- 
edge here  my  indebtedness  to  the  editor  of  the  Journal 
of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  for  kind  permis- 
sion to  quote  several  cases  published  in  the  Journal; 
to  Mr.  Ralph  Shirley,  editor  of  the  Occult  Review,  for 
permission  to  quote  several  valuable  articles  appear- 
ing in  his  magazine;  and  to  the  Harbinger  of  Light, 
The  International  Psychic  Gazette,  Light,  The  Two 
Worlds,  Azoth,  The  Psychical  Research  Review,  The 
Literary  Digest,  The  Bookman,  and  other  periodicals, 
for  material  utilized.  Also,  to  Eosa  Stuart's  book, 
Dreams  and  Visions  of  the  War,  and  to  M.  Maeter- 
linck's The  Light  Beyond,  for  "cases"  and  quotations. 

For  material  utilized  in  Part  I,  I  wish  especially  to 
acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  M.  LeBon's  book,  The 
Psychology  of  the  Great  War,  and  to  Dr.  George  W. 
Crile's  Mechanistic  Conception  of  War  and  Peace. 
The  bulk  of  the  psychological  material,  relating  to  the 
mind  of  the  combatant  in  action,  is  taken  from  my  own 
article  on  "The  Mind  of  the  Soldier,"  first  published 
in  the  Forum,  January,  1916,  and  reprinted  here,  by 
the  editor's  kind  permission,  with  considerable  addi- 
tions. The  chapter  dealing  with  the  psychology  of  the 
soldier  in  action  is  (naturally)  based  almost  entirely 
upon  observations  on  the  Franco-British  front;  and 
but  little  reference  to  the  psychology  of  the  American 
soldier  is  as  yet  possible.  Doubtless  many  psycho- 
logical observations  of  great  value  will  be  forthcom- 
ing, when  U.  S.  soldiers  get  into  action  on  a  vast  scale. 

I  particularly  wish  to  acknowledge,  here,  my  indebt- 
edness to  Mrs.  Ethel  Raynor, — to  whose  sympathetic 
cooperation  and  assistance  this  book  owes  so  much. 

H.  C. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE vii 

PART  I.— NORMAL 

CHAPTIB 

I     INTRODUCTORY 3 

II.    GERMAN  METHODS  OF  WARFARE: 7 

The  Psychology  of  the  Doctrine  of  "Frightful- 
ness." 

Ill     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER:    ....      29 
§1.   During    Mobilization;     in    the     Canton- 
ments; in  the  Trenches. 

IV.    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER  (continued)    .      61 
§2.   During    the    Attack;    Pain;    Shell-Shock; 
Dreams;  Fatigue,  etc. 

4 

PART  II.— SUPERNORMAL 
V.    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA,  SCIENCE  AND  THE  WAR    101 

VI.    PSYCHIC    PHENOMENA    AMIDST    THE    WARRING 

NATIONS 128 

VII.    PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS 141 

VIII.    APPARITIONS  AND  DREAMS  OF  SOLDIERS  .     .     .     172 

IX.    CLAIRVOYANT  DESCRIPTIONS  OF  DEATH;  DEATH 

DESCRIBED  BY  "  SPIRITS." 229 

X.    OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE! 242 

XI.    COMMUNICATIONS   FROM   SOLDIERS   WHO   HAVE 

"DIED" 270 

XII.    THE   SPIRITUAL   REVIVAL   AWAKENED   BY   THE 

WAR 327 

INDEX  .  361 


PART  I 
NORMAL 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA 
AND  THE  WAR 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

THE  importance  of  psychical  investigation  has  never 
been  so  forcefully  demonstrated  to  us  as  by  the  pres- 
ent great  World  War.  Is  man  essentially  body  or 
spirit?  The  former  seems  to  be  the  view  expounded 
in  German  philosophy;  and  it  has  resulted  in  the 
greatest  cataclysm  the  world  has  ever  known.  Every 
month  that  passes,  thousands  of  souls  are  being  shot 
into  the  spiritual  world — or  obliterated  altogether,  ac- 
cording to  our  view  of  the  facts.  What  becomes  of 
them?  Is  it  not  our  duty  to  ascertain,  so  far  as  is  hu- 
manly possible,  whether  they  be  truly  obliterated,  or 
whether  they  continue  to  persist  in  some  spiritual 
world?  and  if  so,  how  and  where?  Surely  this  is  the 
most  important  question  man  can  set  himself,  when 
every  day  the  papers  contain  names  of  those  "killed 
in  action" — a  long  "Roll  of  Honour,"  with  no  cer- 
tainty of  anything  beyond!  At  a  time  such  as  this, 
when  thousands  of  parents,  wives  and  mothers  are 
yearning  for  some  definite  word  from  those  who  are 
no  more ;  at  a  time  when  the  faintest  word  of  hope  and 
encouragement  would  mean  so  much,  if  founded  upon 
truth  and  ascertainable  fact;  the  importance  of  this  in- 

3 


4      PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

vestigation  surely  looms  up  before  us;  for  it  is  by  this 
means, — by  psychical  phenomena  and  by  these  alone,— 
that  either  the  truth  or  the  falsehood  of  spiritual  ex- 
istence can  be  proved ;  for  this  method  and  this  alone 
is  the  one  capable  of  ultimately  solving  the  great  rid- 
dle of  existence.  .  .  . 

The  whole  question  of  psychology,  in  the  present 
war,  assumes  a  great  and  hitherto  unsuspected  impor- 
tance. For,  on  the  one  hand,  we  find  certain  psycho- 
logical principles  underlying  the  methods  and  conduct 
of  the  various  warring  nations ; — the  mind  of  the  sol- 
dier in  the  cantonment,  in  the  trenches,  and  in  action 
—his  dreams,  phobias,  fears  and  heroism;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  as  we  have  said,  it  enables  us  to  attack  the 
great  central  problem:  whether  the  soul  or  spirit  of 
man  is  extinguished  at  death,  or  whether  it  continues 
to  persist  in  some  other  sphere  of  activity — some 
"spiritual  world" — whither  we  shall  all  one  day  travel. 

A  gigantic  psychological  experiment  is  being  under- 
taken in  Europe ;  as  never  before,  certain  psychologi- 
cal and  psychical  phenomena  present  themselves  for 
investigation  and  solution ;  and  these  should  assuredly 
be  studied  with  the  same  degree  of  care  and  exactitude 
as  the  wounds,  injuries,  and  pathological  disturbances 
due  to  bodily  injury  are  being  studied  by  physicians 
and  surgeons  now  at  the  front.  For,  in  the  present 
conflict,  surgery  of  the  soul  is  no  less  a  reality  than 
surgery  of  the  body ;  and  such  an  opportunity  for  gath- 
ering valuable  psychical  and  psychological  data  may 
not  again  present  itself  for  many  generations — in  fact, 
never  again,  in  the  history  of  the  human  race — and  my 
purpose  in  writing  this  book  is  largely  to  make  a 
first, — it  may  be  crude, — attempt  to  gather  together 
and  study  material  of  this  character,  and  to  urge  upon 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

the  various  warring  governments  the  importance  of 
having  a  few  experts  appointed,  on  all  fronts,  whose 
duty  it  would  be  to  gather  psychological  data  of  this 
character,  for  future  generations  to  study.  Already, 
the  French  Government  has  approved  the  publication, 
in  the  Bulletin  des  Artnees  of  an  appeal,  by  Professor 
Charles  Richet,  for  psychical  experiences  and  ' '  cases ' ' 
of  all  sorts ;  and  I  understand  that  a  great  number  of 
such  cases  have  already  been  collected,  and  will  be 
published  shortly.  A  similar  investigation,  undertaken 
by  the  British  and  American  governments,  would 
doubtless  yield  lasting  and  extremely  valuable  scien- 
tific results. 

The  present  world  war,  while  it  must  be  considered, 
in  a  sense,  the  greatest  catastrophe  the  world  has  ever 
known,  yet  has  shown  us,  as  nothing  else  possibly 
could,  the  innate  spiritual  loftiness  and  heroism  resi- 
dent in  man's  soul.  Deeds  of  valor  have  been  per- 
formed which  we  would  have  deemed  incredible  but  a 
few  years  ago, — or  attributed  only  to  the  heroes  of 
mythology.  Compared  with  them,  the  soldiers  in  the 
present  war  shine  out  as  super-heroes — there  is  no 
comparison,  indeed,  between  the  single  brave  deeds-of- 
arms  formerly  performed,  and  the  year-in,  year-out 
struggle,  the  continuous  hell,  which  our  soldiers  are  en- 
during. And  whereas,  in  former  wars,  single  acts  of 
heroism  were  marked  for  distinction,  in  the  present 
conflict,  every  man  is  a  hero;  and  not  only  the  men, 
but  the  women  too  have  displayed  a  devotion,  a  pluck, 
an  endurance  surprising  to  all  who  have  witnessed  it, 
and  never  before  approximated  in  the  history  of  the 
world. 

Should  it  be  proved,  however,  largely  as  the  result 
of  the  present  conflict,  that  man  is  immortal ;  that  he 


possesses  a  spiritual  principle  within  himself  which 
survives  the  death  of  the  body,  and  continues  to  per- 
sist in  some  sphere  of  activity  more  suited  to  its  evo- 
lutionary progress  than  is  this  world, — then  it  will 
not  have  been  in  vain,  for  mankind  will  have  gained 
knowledge  past  all  recompense,  the  "pearl  of  great 
price,"  for  it  will  have  solved  the  riddle  of  existence, 
and  shown  that  we  are  indeed  immortal,  and  that  we 
can,  at  times,  return  and  communicate  with  those  yet 
living  upon  this  earth. 


CHAPTER  H 

GERMAN  METHODS  OF  WARFARE  :   THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OP  THE 
DOCTRINE   OF   "  FRIGHTFULNESS " 

BATTLE 

With  a  terrible  delight 
I  hear  far  guns  low,  like  oxen,  at  the  night. 
Flames  disrupt  the  sky.    The  work  is  begun. 
"Action!"     My  guns  crash,  flame,  rock,  and  stun 
Again  and  again.     Soon  the  soughing  night 
Is  loud  with  the  clamour  and  leaps  with  their  light. 
The  imperative  chorus  rises  sonorous  and  fell; 
My  heart  glows  lighted  as  by  fires  of  hell, 
Sharply  I  pass  the  terse  orders  down: 
The  guns  stun  and  rock.    The  hissing  rain  is  blown 
Athwart  the  hurtling  shell  that  shrilling,  shrilling  goes 
Away  into  the  dark  to  burst,  a  cloud  of  rose, 
Over  their  trenches. 

ROBERT  NICHOLS. 

IT  may  be  appropriate  to  begin  our  study  of  the  psy- 
chological principles  underlying  the  great  war  by  a 
brief  study  of  the  German  mind,  as  manifested  in  the 
military  leaders  of  Germany;  as  the  result  of  which 
we  may  be  enabled  to  understand  why  it  is  that  the 
Germans  have  behaved  themselves  as  they  have,  and 
antagonized  and  embittered  the  whole  world  by  their 
acts  of  savagery  and  cruelty. 

For  some  generations,  the  Germans  have  been  sedu- 
lously educated  in  the  psychological  principles  under- 


lying  the  present  militarists'  conduct  of  the  war. 
Bernhardi,  Treitschke,  and  others  have  so  instilled  into 
the  Germans  that  they  are  a  "superior  people,"  that 
11  might  is  right,"  that  power  constitutes  that  acme  of 
attainment,  etc.,  that  they  have  become  blind  to  any 
other  doctrines  than  their  own;  materialism  has  laid 
hold  upon  them,  as  a  nation ;  their  mechanistic  concep- 
tion of  the  universe  has  led  to  the  complete  disregard 
of  the  higher,  spiritual  values  and  powers,  and  in  con- 
sequence of  this,  their  understanding  and  appreciation 
of  others,  holding  different  views,  has  steadily  dimin- 
ished, until,  of  late  years,  it  may  be  said  to  have  been 
almost  nil.  Yet  there  is  a  poetic  retribution  in  all  this ; 
for,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  it  is  these  very  qualities 
in  the  German  mind, — this  lack  of  understanding  of 
the  psychology  of  others,  which  will  lose  Germany  the 
war. 

War,  say  the  Germans,  is  man's  normal  vocation; 
"all  else  is  foolishness."  Biologically,  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  said  in  favour  of  the  view  that  man  is  a 
fighting  animal,  and  will  always  fight.  But  the  German 
extension  of  this  doctrine  is  quite  unwarranted.  Man 
will  assuredly  outgrow  war,  with  increasing  knowledge 
and  spiritual  development.  But  it  is  because  of  the 
fact  that,  as  yet,  man  is  very  largely  a  primitive  ani- 
mal, that  he  can  be  induced  to  make  war,  by  the  glam- 
our which  has  always  surrounded  it.  Says  Dr.  Crile 
(A  Mechanistic  Conception  of  War  and  Peace) : — 

"As  I  reflected  upon  the  intensive  application  of 
man  to  war  in  cold,  rain,  and  mud;  in  rivers,  canals, 
and  lakes ;  underground,  in  the  air,  and  under  the  sea ; 
infected  with  vermin,  covered  with  scabs,  adding  the 
stench  of  his  own  filthy  body  to  that  of  his  decompos- 
ing comrades;  hairy,  begrimed,  bedraggled,  yet  with 


GERMAN  METHODS  OF  WARFARE         9 

unflagging  zeal  striving  eagerly  to  kill  his  fellows; 
and  as  I  felt  within  myself  the  mystical  urge  of  the 
sound  of  great  cannon  I  realized  that  war  is  a  normal 
state  of  man. ' ' 

The  Germans,  having  realized  this  fact,  have  played 
upon  it,  and  made  it  the  basis  of  their  militaristic  and 
terroristic  policy,  in  their  conduct  of  the  war. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  Germans  have 
endeavoured  to  terrify  the  enemy.  They  have  shot 
or  tortured  a  large  number  of  inoffensive  civilians  in 
order  to  frighten  the  others,  and  have  put  the  finish- 
ing stroke  to  the  effect  thus  produced  by  levying  such 
immense  contributions  that  the  survivors  were  stripped 
bare.  If  the  enemy  can  be  influenced  by  destroying 
monuments  which  he  is  fond  of,  they  are  bombarded 
until  nothing  is  left  of  them  but  ruins.  We  know  how 
carefully  this  system  was  carried  out  in  most  of  the 
Belgian  towns  and  villages.  The  whole  population 
was  assembled  at  a  given  place,  where  a  certain  num- 
ber of  civilians  were  shot  and  the  houses  were  plun- 
dered and  then  burnt.  These  things  were  done  openly 
and  the  officers  gloried  in  them.  As  M.  Andler  says : — 

''In  a  proclamation  addressed  to  the  municipal  au- 
thorities of  Liege,  and  dated  the  22nd  of  August,  Gen- 
eral von  Billow,  alluding  to  the  sack  of  Andenne,  said : 
'It  was  with  my  consent  that  the  Commander-in-Chief 
caused  the  entire  town  to  be  burnt  and  that  about  one 
hundred  persons  were  shot. '  *  ' 

These  savage  Generals  are  only  continuing  Ger- 
many's ancient  modes  of  warfare.  In  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury Frederick  Barbarossa  almost  always  had  one  hand 
of  each  of  his  prisoners  cut  off,  and  when  he  had  pil- 
laged and  afterwards  burnt  Milan  he  ordered  all  the 
inhabitants  who  could  be  seized  to  be  put  to  death.  In 


10    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

Sicily  his  son  caused  prisoners  to  be  flayed  alive  or 
blinded.  Such  conduct  has  always  been  customary 
among  the  Germans.  In  1622  Tilly  massacred  all  the 
inhabitants  of  Heidelberg  and  burnt  the  city,  and  in 
1631  he  sacked  the  town  of  Magdeburg,  destroyed  fif- 
teen hundred  houses  and  six  churches,  and  burnt  most 
of  the  inhabitants  alive. 

Bismarck  asserted  that  war  must  be  made  extremely 
painful  to  the  civil  population  for  the  sake  of  inclining 
it  to  the  idea  of  peace.  In  1870  he  said:— 

"True  strategy  consists  in  hitting  your  enemy  and 
in  hitting  him  hard.  Above  all,  you  should  inflict  the 
maximum  of  suffering  upon  the  inhabitants  of  the 
cities  you  invade,  in  order  to  sicken  them  of  the  strug- 
gle, and  to  secure  their  aid  in  putting  pressure  upon 
their  Government  to  induce  it  to  stop  the  war.  To 
the  people  of  the  countries  through  which  you  pass  you 
should  leave  nothing  but  their  eyes  with  which  to  weep. 

"Our  guiding  rule  in  every  case  is  to  make  war  so 
terrible  to  the  civil  population  that  they  will  them- 
selves entreat  for  peace. ' ' 

We  have  seen  with  what  fierce  ardour  the  Germans 
have  followed  this  advice,  how  they  have  set  villages 
on  fire  and  burnt  women  and  children  alive  or  sub- 
jected them  to  torture ;  but  these  actions  have  had  no 
result  except  the  exodus  of  the  inhabitants  en  masse. 

Cases  of  massacre  and  of  torture  inflicted  upon  pris- 
oners are  innumerable.  The  Temps  of  December  31, 
1914,  gives  the  following  facts: — 

"On  the  6th  of  September  the  cavalryman  Blacke- 
landt  was  disarmed.  He  was  bound  and  his  abdomen 
was  ripped  open  with  bayonet  thrusts.  At  Tamines 
a  French  officer  was  tied  to  the  trunk  of  a  tree  and  a 
horse  was  fastened  to  each  of  his  legs.  At  a  signal  the 


GERMAN  METHODS  OF  WARFARE        11 

horses  were  whipped.  It  was  quartering  in  all  its  hor- 
ror.' 'I  saw,'  says  an  eye-witness,  'his  red  trousers 
tear  and  the  body  burst  asunder. '  ' 

The  following  extracts  were  published  by  the  Jour- 
nal de  Geneve  of  May  5,  1915  :— 

' '  The  massacre  and  conflagration  commenced  by  sig- 
nal and  at  an  hour  which  had  been  settled  in  advance. 
The  horror  was  unutterable.  The  troops  soon  got 
shockingly  drunk  and  gave  themselves  up  to  the  most 
shameful  excesses.  The  officers  were  in  command,  and 
M.  Fuglister  heard  them  say, '  Kill  every  one  and  burn 
everything. '  It  is  still  impossible  to  give  exact  figures, 
but  the  population  was  forty-three  thousand,  and  there 
are  not  more  than  twenty-one  thousand  people  left  in 
Louvain. 

"M.  Fuglister  testified  personally  to  a  series  of  pe- 
culiarly dreadful  atrocities.  He  has  the  proofs  and  is 
keeping  them.  The  known  limits  of  the  horrible  are 
enlarged  by  the  things  which  happened  in  this  place. ' ' 

"But,"  it  may  be  contended,  "these  are  prejudiced 
reports,  written  by  outsiders,  enemies  of  Germany; 
and  may  not  be  true  at  all!"  No  one  who  has  read 
the  Bryce  Reports  can  doubt  the  truth  of  these  ac- 
counts, however.  If  further  proof  were  needed,  it 
could  be  secured  from  the  diaries  of  the  German  offi- 
cers and  soldiers  themselves.  Take,  for  example,  the 
following  extracts,  picked  almost  at  random  from  a 
vast  number  equally  horrible. 

A  Saxon  officer's  notebook: — 

"24th  August.  The  charming  village  of  Gue  d'Hos- 
sus  (Ardennes)  has  been  given  up  to  be  burnt,  although 
it  is  guiltless,  as  it  seems  to  me.  They  tell  me  that  a 
cyclist  was  thrown,  and  that  his  rifle  discharged  itself 


12    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  AVAR 

as  he  fell.  Shots  were  then  fired  in  his  direction  and 
thereupon  all  the  male  inhabitants  were  thrown  into 
the  flames." 

Another : — 

"In  this  way  we  destroyed  eight  houses,  together 
with  their  inmates.  In  one  of  them  two  men  and  their 
wives  and  a  young  girl  of  eighteen  were  bayoneted. 
I  almost  pitied  the  little  creature,  she  looked  so  inno- 
cent !" 

Another  fragment  of  a  notebook: — 

"25th  August  (in  Belgium) :  Three  hundred  inhabi- 
tants of  the  town  were  shot.  The  survivors  were  re- 
quisitioned as  grave-diggers.  You  ought  to  have  seen 
the  women  then!" 

Some  of  the  soldiers  had  treated  the  prisoners  kind- 
ly, so  General  Stenger,  who  commanded  the  58th  Bri- 
gade, gave  his  troops  the  following  order  on  the  25th 
of  August: — 

"To  date  from  this  day  no  prisoners  will  be  made 
any  longer.  All  the  prisoners  will  be  executed.  The 
wounded,  whether  armed  or  defenceless,  will  be  exe- 
cuted. Prisoners,  even  in  large  and  compact  forma- 
tions, will  be  executed.  Not  a  single  living  man  will  be 
left  behind  us. ' ' 

Or  the  following  extracts,  recently  published  in  the 
Literary  Digest,  from  diaries  in  the  possession  of  the 
United  States  Government,  and  found  upon  dead  Ger- 
man soldiers: 

"A  horrible  bath  of  blood.  The  whole  village 
burned,  the  French  thrown  into  the  blazing  houses, 
civilians  with  the  rest."  (From  the  diary  of  Private 
Hassemer  of  the  Eighth  Army  Corps.) 

"In  the  night  of  August  18-19  the  village  of  Saint- 


GERMAN  METHODS  OP  WARFARE       13" 

Maurice  was  punished  for  having  fired  on  German  sol- 
diers by  being  burned  to  the  ground  by  German  troops 
(two  regiments,  the  Twelfth  landwehr  and  the  Seven- 
teenth). The  village  was  surrounded,  men  posted 
about  a  yard  from  one  another,  so  that  no  one  could 
get  out.  Then  the- Uhlans  set  fire  to  it,  house  by  house. 
Neither  man,  woman,  nor  child  could  escape.  .  .  .  Any 
one  who  ventured  to  come  out  was  shot  down.  All  the 
inhabitants  left  in  the  village  were  burned  with  the 
houses. ' '  (From  the  diary  of  Private  Karl  Scheuf ele  of 
the  Third  Bavarian  Regiment  of  landwehr  infantry.) 

"At  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening  the  first  battalion  of 
the  One  Hundred  and  Seventy-eighth  marched  down  the 
steep  incline  into  the  burning  village  to  the  north  of 
Dinant — a  terrific  spectacle  of  ghastly  beauty.  At  the 
entrance  to  the  village  lay  about  fifty  dead  civilians, 
shot  for  having  fired  upon  our  troops  from  ambush. 
In  the  course  of  the  night  many  others  were  also  shot, 
so  that  we  counted  over  two  hundred.  Women  and 
children,  lamp  in  hand,  were  forced  to  look  on  at  the 
horrible  scene.  We  ate  our  rice  later  in  the  midst  of 
the  corpses,  for  we  had  had  nothing  since  morning. 
When  we  searched  the  houses  we  found  plenty  of  wine 
and  spirit,  but  no  eatables.  Captain  Hamann  was 
drunk."  (This  last  phrase  in  shorthand.)  (From  the 
diary  of  Private  Philipp  of  the  One  Hundred  and  Sev- 
enty-eighth Regiment  of  Infantry,  Twelfth  Army 
Corps.) 

"August  23,  Sunday  (between  Birnal  and  Dinant, 
village  of  Dison).  At  11  o'clock  the  order  comes  to  ad- 
vance after  the  artillery  has  thoroughly  prepared  the 
ground  ahead.  The  Pioneers  and  Infantry  regiment, 
One  Hundred  and  Seventy-eighth,  were  marching  in 
front  of  us.  Near  a  small  village  the  latter  was  fired 


14    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

on  by  the  inhabitants.  About  220  inhabitants  were 
shot  and  the  village  was  burned.  Artillery  is  continu- 
ously shooting.  The  village  lies  in  a  large  ravine.  Just 
now,  6  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  crossing  of  the 
Maas  begins  near  Dinant.  .  .  .  All  villages,  chateaux, 
and  houses  are  burned  down  during  this  night.  It  was 
a  beautiful  sight  to  see  the  fires  all  around  us  in  the 
distance."  (From  the  diary  of  Matbern,  Fourth  Com- 
pany, Eleventh  Jager  Battalion,  Marburg.) 

But  here  are  three  entries  that  show  the  hearts  of  the 
writers  to  have  been  still  free  from  the  taint  of  blood- 
lust: 

"At  5  o'clock  we  were  ordered  by  the  officer  in  com- 
mand of  the  regiment  to  shoot  all  the  male  inhabitants 
of  Nomeny,  because  the  population  was  foolishly  at- 
tempting to  stay  the  advance  of  the  German  troops  by 
force  of  arms.  We  broke  into  the  houses  and  seized 
all  who  resisted,  in  order  to  execute  them  according  to 
martial  law. 

"The  houses  which  had  not  been  already  destroyed 
by  the  French  artillery  and  our  own  were  set  on  fire 
by  us,  so  that  nearly  the  whole  town  was  reduced  to 
ashes.  It  is  a  terrible  sight  when  helpless  women  and 
children,  utterly  destitute,  are  herded  together  and 
driven  into  France."  (From  the  diary  of  Private 
Fischer,  Eighth  Bavarian  Regiment  of  Infantry,  Thir- 
ty-third Reserve  Division.) 

"The  inhabitants  have  fled  in  the  village.  It  was 
horrible.  There  was  clotted  blood  on  all  the  beards, 
and  what  faces  one  saw,  terrible  to  behold.  The  dead, 
sixty  in  all,  were  at  once  buried.  Among  them  were 
many  old  women,  some  old  men,  awful  to  see;  three 
children  had,  clasped  each  other  and  died  thus."  (From 


GERMAN  METHODS  OF  WARFARE        15 

the  diary  of  Lance-corporal  Paul  Spielmann  of  the  Er- 
satz, First  Brigade  of  Infantry  of  the  Guard.) 

"In  the  night  the  inhabitants  of  Liege  became  muti- 
nous. Forty  persons  were  shot  and  fifteen  houses  de- 
molished ;  ten  soldiers  shot.  The  sights  here  make  you 
cry." 

The  following  extract  from  the  diary  of  an  officer 
calmly  records  the  sacking  of  a  convent  and  the  mur- 
der of  the  inmates.  Mark  how  munitions  were  con- 
served : 

"Our  men  came  back  and  said  that  at  the  point  where 
the  valley  joined  the  Meuse  we  could  not  get  on  any 
farther  as  the  villagers  were  shooting  at  us  from  every 
house.  We  shot  the  whole  lot — sixteen  of  them.  They 
were  drawn  up  in  three  ranks — the  same  shot  did  for 
three  at  a  time.  .  .  .  The  men  had  already  shown  their 
brutal  instincts.  .  .  .  The  sight  of  the  bodies  of  all 
the  inhabitants  who  had  been  shot  was  indescribable. 
Every  house  in  the*  whole  village  was  destroyed.  We 
dragged  the  villagers  one  after  another  out  of  the  most 
unlikely  corners.  The  men  were  shot  as  well  as  the 
women  and  children  who  were  in  the  convent,  since 
shots  had  been  fired  from  the  convent  windows,  and  we 
burned  it  afterward." 

Bombardier  Wetzel  is  an  emotionless  Hun,  if  one 
may  judge  from  these  impassive  entries  in  his  diary. 

"August  8.  First  fight  and  set  fire  to  several  vil- 
lages. 

"August  9.  Returned  to  old  quarters,  where  we 
searched  all  the  houses  and  shot  the  mayor  and  shot 
one  man  down  from  the  chimney-pot,  and  then  again 
set  fire  to  the  village. 

"October  11.  We  had  no  fight,  but  we  caught  about 
twenty  men  and  shot  them." 


16    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

And  the  Germans  are  not  alone  to  blame  for  such 
atrocities.  The  wholesale  massacres  committed  by  the 
Turks  and  Bulgars  are  too  well-known  to  need  more 
than  the  merest  reminder;  we  have,  in  fact,  almost 
grown  to  disregard  them  and  accept  them  as  a  "matter 
of  course" — with  imaginable  consequences  to  the 
Serbs,  Montenegrins,  Armenians,  Syrians,  and  other 
temporarily  subjugated  nationalities!  The  Austrians 
have  also  been  guilty  of  the  grossest  cruelties  and  tor- 
tures— as  a  number  of  photographs  and  sworn  state- 
ments show.  Professor  Eeiss,  for  example,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Lausanne,  who  went  to  Serbia  and  published 
some  of  his  findings  in  the  Revue  de  Paris,  April  7, 
1915,  says,  with  regard  to  the  kind  of  cruelties  prac- 
tised by  the  Austrian  soldiers  under  the  order  of  their 
officers : — 

"I  have  observed  the  following  kinds  of  mutilation 
and  slaughter:  the  victims  were  shot,  bayoneted  to 
death,  their  throats  were  cut  with  knives,  they  were 
violated  and  then  killed,  they  were  stoned,  hanged, 
beaten  to  death  with  the  butt-ends  of  rifles  or  with 
clubs,  were  disembowelled  or  burned  alive;  their  legs 
or  arms  were  cut  off,  or  torn  out,  their  ears  or  noses 
were  cut  off,  their  eyes  were  put  out,  their  breasts 
were  cut  off,  their  skin  was  cut  into  strips  or  their  flesh 
was  detached  from  the  bones,  and,  lastly,  a  little  girl 
three  months  old  was  thrown  to  the  pigs." 

Take,  again,  the  following  touching  account,  which 
appeared  in  a  French  newspaper,  and  the  accuracy  of 
which  was  vouched  for  by  a  number  of  well-known  in- 
habitants of  the  districts : — 

"Mme.  Huard,  who  at  once  began  to  prepare  her 
home  to  serve  as  a  hospital,  was  asked  to  visit  a  child 
in  a  neighbouring  village  that  had  also  suffered  at  the 


GERMAN  METHODS  OF  WARFARE   17 

hands  of  the  invaders.  The  little  girl,  who  was  only 
ten  years  old,  was  almost  crazed  with  terror.  Mme. 
Huard  says  that  she  found  the  child  in  bed,  but  when 
her  eyes  fell  upon  the  uniform  of  the  doctor  who  ac- 
companied her  she  sprang  into  a  corner  of  the  room 
where  she  cowered,  shrieking: 

"  'I  am  afraid !  I  am  afraid !  Don't  come  near  me ! 
Don't,  don't!'  Her  little  body  was  quaking,  tortured 
by  her  spirit. 

"The  old  grandmother  darted  into  the  room  and, 
seizing  the  doctor  by  the  arm,  motioned  him  to  come 
away. 

"  'Elvire,'  pleaded  the  broken-hearted  mother,  *E1- 
vire,  he's  gone.' 

"  'But  he'll  come  back!  No!  no!  I'm  afraid.  No, 
don't  let  him  come,  don't  let  him  touch  me.' 

"  'Elvire,'  I  called,  my  voice  shaking  with  horror 
and  emotion.  'Elvire,  don't  you  remember  me?  Sure- 
ly— Mme.  Huard?  *  Don't  you  remember  how  we  used 
to  sing  together  last  spring?' 

"A  queer  choking  sound  came  from  her  throat.  Her 
eyes  softened,  but  no  tears  came.  There  were  none 
left. 

"Then  followed  the  hardest  moral  struggle  I  ever 
hope  to  experience — a  full  half -hour  in  which  I  sought 
to  convince  this  little  fear-cowed  animal  of  my  integ- 
rity. And  when  at  last  I  held  that  tiny  heaving  body 
against  my  breast,  saw  the  eyes  close  peacefully,  I 
knew  that  I  had  won  a  victory. 

"Elvire  slept,  slept  for  the  first  time  since  the  5th 
of  September.  We  had  already  guessed  the  woeful 
truth,  but  to  corroborate  our  direst  suppositions,  the 
tales  of  German  cowardice  and  brutality  that  mid  tears 
and  lamentations  we  wrung1  from  those  grief-bowed 


18    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

peasant  women  made  me  feel  that  war  might  pass  and 
peace  might  come  again,  but  I  could  never  pardon." 

How  do  the  Germans  attempt  to  justify  such  fright- 
ful atrocities?  They  do  not  attempt  to  justify  them; 
on  the  contrary,  they  glory  in  them!  As  a  German 
General  wrote  in  a  Berlin  newspaper,  quoted  in  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  December  15,  1914 : — 

"We  have  nothing  to  justify,  for  everything  that  our 
soldiers  may  do  to  harm  the  enemy  will  be  well  done 
and  justified  in  advance.  If  all  the  architectural  mas- 
terpieces between  our  guns  and  those  of  the  French 
went  to  perdition,  it  would  be  a  matter  of  perfect  in- 
difference to  us.  .  .  .  They  call  us  barbarians ;  but  we 
laugh  at  such  nonsense.  At  the  most  we  might  ask 
ourselves  whether  we  have  not  some  right  to  the  name. 
Let  no  one  say  anything  more  to  us  about  the  Cathe- 
dral of  Eeims  or  all  the  churches  and  palaces  that  will 
share  its  fate,  for  we  do  not  wish  to  hear  any  more 
about  them.  If  we  can  only  get  news  from  Eeims  that 
our  troops  have  made  a  second  triumphal  entry,  noth- 
ing else  matters." 

*  How  all  this  has  already  begun  to  undermine  the  mental  and 
physical  health  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  German-occupied  districts 
is  well  pointed-out  by  Dr.  Crile  (A  Mechanistic  Conception  of  War 
and  Peace,  pp.  88-89) : 

"The  Belgian  exiles  whom  I  have  seen  show  a  loss  in  morale; 
they  are  preoccupied,  absent-minded,  diseased,  homesick,  weak,  de- 
jected, bitter,  and  broken.  They  have  suffered  a  permanent  loss 
which  is  beyond  compensation  and  beyond  redemption.  Thus  mil- 
lions of  men,  women,  children,  and  unborn  infants  have  been  sub- 
jected to  a  vivisection  of  unparalleled  cruelty  unsurpassed  in  the 
history  of  man  or  of  the  lower  animals.  It  is  as  if  upon  Belgium 
as  a  whole,  every  degree  of  physical,  mental  and  moral  torture 
had  been  inflicted  without  anesthesia.  In  fact,  in  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  Belgian  exiles  their  progressive  moral  vivisection  still 
continues.  .  .  ." 


GERMAN  METHODS  OF  WARFARE       19 

The  Germans  are  astounded  at  the  indignation  with 
which  neutrals  regard  their  conduct,  for  they  have  sim- 
ply obeyed  theories  which  they  thought  it  their  duty 
to  apply  practically,  and  they  cannot  see  that  there  is 
anything  so  very  surprising  about  incendiarism  and 
pillage.  As  Frederick  the  Great  said  long  ago:  ''Pil- 
lage is  not  at  all  the  same  as  theft." 

The  German  officer  is  treated  with  enormous  respect 
because  of  his  power  in  barracks,  and,  fancying  that 
he  is  made  of  finer  clay  than  other  people,  he  recog- 
nizes no  law  but  that  of  the  military  code.  A  very 
typical  example  of  his  mentality  was  furnished  by  the 
notorious  affair  at  Zabern,  where  a  Colonel  had  some 
thirty  civilians,  including  a  magistrate,  thrown  into  a 
cellar  and  kept  there  for  twenty-four  hours,  simply 
because  he  did  not  consider  that  they  had  paid  him 
proper  respect.  He  was  brought  before  a  military 
court  and  was  not  only  unanimously  acquitted,  but  re- 
ceived the  congratulations  of  the  Crown  Prince  as 
well.  Had  a  similar  violation  of  the  law  occurred  in 
England,  he  would  have  been  given  a  prison  sentence 
or  condemned  to  the  gallows. 

But  for  militarism  it  is  different!  General  Hart- 
mann,  for  example,  says: 

*  *  War  is  by  its  very  nature  the  negation  of  the  prin- 
ciples upon  which  civilization  and  culture  depend  and 
of  the  laws  which  watch  over  their  development;  for 
it  replaces  them  by  a  state  of  things  which  makes  force 
and  individual  power  lawful.  If  by  civilization  we 
mean  the  equilibrium  of  rights  and  duties  which  sup- 
port the  social  structure  of  the  nations  and  which  guar- 
antee their  institutions,  the  term  civilized  warfare, 
as  Bluntschli  uses  it,  is  scarcely  intelligible,  for  it  in- 
volves an  irreconcilable  contradiction. 


"It  is  necessary  to  inflict  and  injure  the  enemy  in 
order  to  curb  and  break  his  will,  and  the  unquestion- 
able justification  of  such  means  lies  in  their  efficacious- 
ness, and  in  the  fact  that  they  enable  one  to  make  sure 
of  attaining  a  precisely  defined  military  object." 

Von  Blum  writes:  "Our  undertakings  should  aim 
above  all  else  at  increasing  the  injury  done  to  the 
enemy. 

1 '  The  first  method  to  be  employed  is  the  invasion  of 
the  enemy  provinces,  not  with  any  intention  of  keep- 
ing them,  but  for  the  purpose  of  levying  contributions 
of  war  or  merely  of  laying  them  waste. ' ' 

Hartmann  says:  "The  enemy  state  must  not  be 
spared  the  anguish  and  woe  inherent  in  warfare.  The 
burden  must  be  crushing  and  must  remain  so.  The 
necessity  of  imposing  it  results  from  the  very  idea  of 
national  warfare.  .  .  .  When  a  national  war  breaks 
out  terrorism  becomes  a  principle  which  is  necessary 
from  the  military  standpoint. ' ' 

It  is  certain  that  in  all  future  wars  the  nations  will 
be  forced  to  adopt  the  German  methods  and  to  be  mer- 
ciless in  their  turn,  for  an  army  which  should  obey 
international  Conventions  like  those  of  The  Hague 
would  be  weak  indeed  when  confronted  by  one  which 
had  no  concern  for  such  things. 

How  are  we  to  account  for  this  German  doctrine  of 
"frightfulness"  which  has  succeeded  in  turning  the 
whole  world  against  Germany,  and  in  causing  civilized 
nations  to  shudder  with  horror  at  the  wrongs  commit- 
ted f  There  must  be  some  reason,  some  motive,  be- 
hind the  German  doctrine  of  terrorism,  for  otherwise 
it  would  be  senseless,  and  everything  points  to  the 
fact  that  the  whole  German  conduct  of  the  war,  in 
every  other  rospect,  has  been  far  from  that.  What, 


GERMAN  METHODS  OF  WARFARE       21 

then,  have  the  Germans  hoped  to  gain  by  this  method 
of  warfare ;  what  have  they  aimed  to  achieve  by  their 
wholesale  slaughter  of  innocent  women  and  children, 
their  atrocities  upon  the  men,  their  bombing  of  un- 
fortified and  unprotected  cities,  their  general  savage 
attacks  upon  the  civil  populations  of  the  enemy  coun- 
tries? Everything  points  to  the  fact  that  these  out- 
rages have  been  well-organized  from  the  first;  they 
are  not  sporadic  outbreaks  of  rage  or  drunken  lust  and 
anger  on  the  part  of  the  German  soldiery.  No ;  these 
acts  have  been  carried  out  by  order  of  the  German  high 
command, — ruthlessly,  relentlessly,  from  the  first,  and 
evidently  with  a  definite  object  in  view.  What  is  that 
object? 

The  obvious  reply  is  that  it  is  intended  to  terrify  and 
subjugate  the  civilian  population  of  the  various  enemy 
countries,  to  such  an  extent  that  they  will  cry  for  peace 
—so  to  terrify  them  that  they  will  bring  pressure  to 
bear  upon  their  rulers  and  leaders  to  end  the  war,  and 
stop  the  slaughter  of  the  innocents.  But  we  know  that 
the  results  have  been  the  very  opposite  of  this!  The 
Zeppelin  raids  over  England  had  the  effect  of  awaken- 
ing that  country  to  the  reality  of  the  war,  and  stimu- 
lated recruiting  more  than  anything  else  possibly 
could  have  done.  Belgium,  bled  white,  not  only  of  her 
men,  but  also  of  her  strength  and  resources,  still  clings 
desperately  to  her  ancient  faith,  with  a  grim  determi- 
nation and  patriotism  which  has  aroused  the  admira- 
tion of  the  whole  world,  and  will  live  in  history  so  long 
as  this  earth  shall  last.  The  same  is  true  of  France, 
Poland,  Serbia,  and  the  other  invaded  districts,  which 
are  occupied  by  Germany  or  her  allies.  According  to 
German  psychology,  these  nations  or  districts  should 
now  be  crushed, — driven  into  the  arms  of  Germany  by 


22    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

sheer  despair  and  terror;  the  populace  of  England 
should  have  been  so  prostrated  by  the  Zeppelin  raids 
that  it  would  have  insisted  upon  peace,  etc.  Yet,  as  we 
know,  all  these  German  psychological  calculations  have 
gone  astray;  the  peoples  of  the  world  are  today  more 
united  and  more  determined  than  ever  to  destroy  that 
great  evil  of  Prussian  militarism;  and  this  is  as  true  of 
the  districts  subject  to  " terrorism"  as  of  any  other. 
How  comes  it  about,  therefore,  that  the  German  cal- 
culations were  so  wrong  in  this  connection — that  the 
various  nations  did  not  react  as  they  were  expected 
to ;  and  that  the  German  leaders  could  have  committed 
so  colossal  a  blunder  as  to  have  antagonized  and  em- 
bittered the  whole  world,  in  order  to  carry  out  a  false 
doctrine  ? 

The  answer  to  that  puzzling  question  is  simply  this : 
Such  methods  would  have  terrorized  the  Germans 
themselves;  therefore  they  thought  they  would  terror- 
ize other  peoples  in  the  same  manner.  Air  raids,  the 
slaying  of  innocents,  fire,  rapine  and  murder,  would 
have  so  terrified  the  inhabitants  of  German  cities  that 
they  would  have  acted  just  as  the  inhabitants  of  other 
nations  were  supposed  to  act.  In  short,  they  employed 
against  their  enemies  the  very  weapons  and  methods 
of  warfare  which  would  have  terrorized  themselves. 
And  they  cannot  understand  why  other  nations  are  not 
similarly  terrorized — why  it  is  that  they  react  in  a 
different  manner.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Ger- 
man is  incapable  of  conceiving  any  one  thinking  dif- 
ferently than  himself.  His  egotism  and  vanity  is  at  the 
root  of  the  whole  problem, — and  will  lose  him  the  war. 
If  he  thinks  in  a  certain  way  about  a  given  problem 
or  fact,  every  one  else  must  do  likewise — if  they  do 
not,  it  is  "contrary  to  rule" — verboten — non-under- 


23 

standable !  This  is  the  root  and  core  of  the  whole  Ger- 
man psychology  and  their  methods  of  warfare.  That 
they  do  react  in  the  manner  I  have  indicated  is  amply 
borne-out  by  the  following  account, — recently  pub- 
lished,— of  the  first  British  reprisal  raid,  after  that 
policy  had  been  adopted,  in  retaliation  for  the  re- 
peated Zeppelin  raids  over  London. 
This  is  the  account: — 

GEKMANS  TERBORIZED  BY  BKITISH  Am  EAIDEES 

People  of  Mannheim  Rushed  to  Street  Half  Clothed 

11  LONDON,  Jan.  28. — British  airmen  who  raided 
Mannheim  Thursday  night  caused  unparalleled  terror 
in  that  city,  according  to  Geneva  despatches  to  the 
London  Daily  Express  today,  quoting  several  travel- 
lers from  Germany. 

'  *  One  of  these,  an  injured  German,  arrived  at  Basle. 
Despite  police  orders,  he  said,  terrorstricken  people 
rushed  out  of  doors  half  clothed  and  gathered  in  the 
streets.  The  British  raiders  scored  a  direct  hit  on  the 
barracks. 

"After  the  raid,  the  travellers  declared,  crowds  as- 
sembled and  shouted  'Down  with  war;  give  us 
peace!'  " 

This  is  what  the  London  crowds  were  supposed  to 
have  done,  and  did  not  do ;  and  the  inhabitants  of  Paris 
likewise ;  and  the  Germans  cannot  understand  why  they 
did  not !  They  cannot  understand  any  mind  but  their 
own.  Never  has  national  psychology  been  more  force- 
fully betrayed  than  in  these  incidents ;  never  have  the 
temperamental  reactions  of  the  various  nations  been 
better  illustrated  than  in  the  present  conflict. 


24    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

And,  after  all,  as  M.  Le  Bon  has  so  well  said: — 

"The  present  war  is  a  contest  between  psychologi- 
cal forces.  Irreconcilable  ideals  are  grappling  with 
one  another.  Individual  liberty  is  drawn  up  against 
collective  servitude,  personal  initiative  against  the  tyr- 
anny of  State  Socialism,  old  habits  of  international 
integrity  and  respect  for  treaties  against  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  cannon.  The  ideal  of  the  absolutism  of 
force,  whose  triumph  Germany  is  now  striving  to  se- 
cure, is  nothing  new,  for  in  antiquity  it  reigned  su- 
preme, and  the  attempt  to  substitute  another  for  it  has 
cost  Europe  a  struggle  of  two  thousand  years.  The 
victory  of  the  Teutonic  theory  would  carry  the  na- 
tions back  to  the  most  distressful  periods  of  their  his- 
tory, back  to  the  eras  of  violence  when  the  law  of  the 
strongest  was  the  sole  foundation  of  justice. 

"Men  were  beginning  to  forget  the  dark  ages  in 
which  the  weak  were  pitilessly  crushed,  the  useless 
were  brutally  cast  off,  and  the  ideals  of  the  nations 
were  conquest,  slaughter,  and  pillage.  But  the  belief 
that  the  progress  of  civilization  had  once  and  for  all 
been  destroyed,  and  barbarous  customs  of  primitive 
periods,  was  a  dangerous  illusion,  for  new  hordes  of 
savages,  whose  ancestral  ferocity  the  centuries  have 
not  mitigated,  even  now  dream  of  enslaving  the  world 
that  they  may  exploit  it. 

"The  ideas  which  dominate  Germany  inspire  appre- 
hension because  they  have  come  to  assume  a  religious 
form.  Like  the  Arabs  of  Mohammed's  day,  the  Teu- 
tonic nations  are  deluded  by  a  dream  which  makes 
them  fancy  that  they  are  a  superior  race,  destined  first 
to  conquer  the  world  and  then  to  regenerate  it.  .  .  ."  * 

*  The  Psychology  of  the  Great  War,  pp.  18-19. 


GERMAN  METHODS  OF  WARFARE        25 

It  would  be  easy  to  give  extracts  from  the  writings 
of  the  German  leaders  of  thought  which  prove  this. 

Here,  for  instance,  are  some  extracts  from  a  book 
called  //  /  Were  King,  quoted  by  Le  Correspondant  of 
September,  1914 : — 

"Since  Germany  is  supreme,  above  all,  she  has  a 
right  to  all.  Germany  aims  at  the  destruction  of  every- 
thing that  can  obstruct  her  expansion  by  blood  and 
iron.  England  must  be  destroyed  and  France  must  be 
crushed  so  that  we  may  take  her  colonies  and  such 
of  her  territories  as  are  necessary  for  our  safety.  The 
small  States  of  Holland  and  Belgium  must  be  subjected 
to  the  lofty  guardianship  of  Germany;  Russia  will 
easily  be  conquered,  and  her  frontier  districts  will 
then  become  fields  for  our  colonization." 

Bernhardi,  in  the  tenth  chapter  of  his  book,  says : — 

"It  is  impossible  to  lay  down  a  written  law  able  to 
regulate  all  the  differences  between  nation  and  nation. 
...  In  every  profession  and  in  every  nation  we  find 
an  individual  conception  of  honour. 

".  .  .  General  treaties  of  arbitration  must  be  par- 
ticularly pernicious  to  an  ambitious  and  rising  nation, 
such  as  Germany,  which  has  not  yet  reached  the  high- 
est point  in  its  political  and  national  development. 
.  .  .  Thus  all  progress  which  requires  change  of  terri- 
tory would  be  prevented,  and  the  development  of 
strong  States  would  be  stopped  by  the  status  quo — to 
the  advantage  of  decadent  nations. ' ' 

Again : — 

"Oh!  how  we  thank  God  for  having  chosen  our  great 
and  incomparable  Kaiser  and  his  people  to  accomplish 
this  mighty  mission;  for  has  Darwin  not  said  (and  no 
doubt  he  borrowed  this  idea  from  our  great  German 
professors)  that  only  the  fittest  shall  survive?  And 


26    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

are  the  Germans  not  the  fittest  in  all  things!  There- 
fore let  all  of  us  Germans  say:  Perish  the  carrion! 
Only  the  Germans  are  noble  men!"  (Quoted  in  the 
Temps,  June  29,  1915.) 

Or  the  following: 

"When  we  have  humbled  our  enemies  and  confis- 
cated their  lands,  let  but  any  one  of  the  former  natives 
of  the  soil,  be  he  English,  French,  Italian,  American, 
or  a  man  of  any  other  lower  race,  lift  up  his  voice 
louder  than  a  sigh,  and  we  will  dash  him  to  pieces 
against  the  earth!" 

It  is  upon  such  mental  pabulum  as  this  that  the  Ger- 
mans have  been  fed  for  the  past  two  generations ;  is  it 
any  wonder  that  they  have  grown  to  believe  themselves 
the  greatest-of-all,  the  chosen-of-God,  they  who  shall 
inherit  the  earth?  In  fact,  this  belief — ' ' Deutschland 
iiber  alles" — has  become  a  fetich  with  them,  to  the 
extent,  as  M.  Le  Bon  points  out,  of  being  practically  a 
religious  dogma.  He  says: — 

"The  faith  of  the  Germans  in  their  Kultur  and  in 
their  mission  to  dominate  the  world  as  a  chosen  people, 
superior  to  all  those  of  the  past,  present,  and  future, 
is  certainly  a  real  source  of  strength  in  war ;  but  it  is 
also  a  cause  of  cruelty,  especially  in  its  theological 
or  metaphysical  form,  which  tends  to  give  the  conflict 
the  character  of  a  religious  war.  The  adversary  is  not 
only  an  enemy,  but  an  excommunicated  heretic  as  well, 
a  miscreant,  a  blasphemer  of  sacred  Kultur, — guilty 
of  high  treason  against  the  all-holy.  To^conquer  him 
is  not  enough ;  he  must  be  utterly  destroyed.  The  Bel- 
gians committed  the  daring  sacrilege  of  refusing  to  let 
the  hallowed  cohorts  of  divine  Kultur  pass  through 
their  territory.  Thus  they  are  guilty  of  high  treason 
against  the  all-holy,  and  are  justly  punished  today,  as 


GERMAN  METHODS  OF  WARFARE       27 

they  were  chastized  of  old  by  the  Duke  of  Alba  for  a 
similar  crime." 

But  does  this  doctrine  of  ruthless  destruction — of 
suppression,  tyranny,  rape,  famine,  torture  and  vivi- 
section— have  the  effect  desired?  Does  it  succeed  in 
obliterating  the  spirit  of  the  ravaged  nations,  as  the 
Germans  had  hoped?  No ;  it  has  precisely  the  opposite 
effect ;  and  this  the  Germans  cannot  understand.  Their 
own  minds  cannot  conceive  this,  and  yet  all  history 
shows  it  to  be  true !  As  M.  Le  Bon  has  so  well  said,  in 
his  Psychology  of  the  Great  War,  p.  471 : — 

"When  Hannibal  destroyed  the  last  of  the  Roman 
armies  at  Cannae,  he  thought  that  he  had  conquered 
for  ever  the  rival  whom  his  country  feared,  but  he 
had  not  made  the  will  of  Rome  to  stoop,  and  it  was 
Carthage  which  finally  disappeared  from  the  world's 
stage. 

"Germany  has  not  enfeebled  the  will  of  any  nation 
which  she  has  invadted.  All  of  them  would  rather  die 
than  submit. 

"Such  energy  suffices,  for  today  there  is  no  despot 
so  mighty  that  he  can  dominate  a  people  which  will  not 
obey.  Napoleon  discovered  this  in  Spain.  He  took 
her  cities  and  vanquished  her  armies,  but  although  he 
was  the  greatest  soldier  in  history  he  did  not  subju- 
gate her. 

"The  future  depends,  beyond  all  else,  upon  the  con- 
tinuance of  our  will.  Conquer  or  die,  but  never  yield ! 
must  be  the  brief  watchword  of  the  nations  which  Ger- 
many would  enslave.  Neither  Nature,  nor  man,  nor 
fate  itself,  can  withstand  a  strong  and  steadfast  will. 
T  have  said  it  over  and  over  again,  and  I  repeat  it  once 
more." 


28 

And  Dr.  Crile,  in  his  Mechanistic  Conception  of  War 
and  Peace,  says : — 

i  "But  again  the  question  rises :  Can  a  people  through 
force  be  given  action-patterns  against  their  will? 
Rome  never  succeeded  in  Romanizing  the  world.  Rome 
tried  to  subjugate  Belgium;  Belgium  is  here — Rome 
has  passed.  Napoleon  failed;  the  Moors  failed;  Eng- 
land never  assimilated  the  Irish  nor  the  Scotch ;  Rus- 
sia the  Poles ;  nor  the  Manchus  the  Chinese.  England 
has  learned  by  a  large  experience  over  a  considerable 
period  of  time  that  subject-races  cannot  be  altered  by 
force.  Germany  has  not  succeeded  in  extending  her 
doctrine  of  centralized  force  into  her  colonies.  Force 
creates  action-patterns  of  opposition  and  of  hatred. 
The  conquering  enemy  can  never  supplant  the  influ- 
ence of  the  hating  mother  who  plants  action-patterns 
in  the  brains  of  her  children  when  the  shades  are 
drawn." 


CHAPTER  IH 

THE   PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE   SOLDIER 

§1.  During  Mobilisation;  In  the  Cantonments;  In  the 

Trenches 

A  PRAYER  IN  KHAKI 

0  Lord,  my  God,  accept  my  prayer  of  thanks 
That  Thou  hast  placed  me  humbly  in  the  ranks 
Where  I  can  do  my  part,  all  unafraid — 

A  simple  soldier  in  Thy  great  crusade. 

1  pray  Thee,  Lord,  let  others  take  command  j 
Enough  for  me,  a  rifle  in  my  hand, 

Thy  blood-red  banner  ever  leading  me 
Where  I  can  fight  for  liberty  and  Thee. 

Give  others,  God,  the  glory;  mine  the  right 
To  stand  beside  my  comrades  in  the  fight, 
To  die,  if  need  be,  in  some  foreign  land — / 
Absolved  and  solaced  by  a  soldier's  hand. 

O  Lord,  my  God,  pray  hearken  to  my  prayer 
And  keep  me  ever  humble,  keep  me  where 
The  fight  is  thickest,  where,  'midst  steel  and  flame, 
Thy  sons  give  battle,  calling  on  Thy  name. 

ROBERT  GARLAND. 

OP  what  does  the  soldier  going  into  battle  think? 
During  those  long,  weary  weeks  of  waiting  and  watch- 
ing in  the  trenches,  what  occupies  the  soldier's  mind? 
What  feelings  animate  him  when  he  attacks — when  he 
fires,  charges,  or  runs  his  bayonet  into  the  quivering 

29 


30    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

flesh  of  an  antagonist?  These  are  questions  univers- 
ally asked,  but  rarely  answered!  Yet  their  answers 
would  provide  us  with  unique  and  valuable  scientific 
knowledge — would  supply  a  chapter  in  the  psychology 
of  the  human  mind  never  before  studied. 

In  our  endeavour  to  answer  the  questions  we  have 
just  asked,  it  will  be  necessary  for  us  to  go  back  to 
a  period  prior  to  the  opening  of  hostilities, — while 
peace  yet  reigned  in  the  world  (how  long  ago  it 
seems !),  for  in  this  way  only  can  we  trace  the  gradual 
transition  which  takes  place  in  the  man's  mind, — trans- 
forming him  from  a  "civilian"  to  a  "soldier" — and 
trace  the  subtle  change  from  the  civilian-consciousness 
to  the  soldier-consciousness. 

In  one  sense,  it  may  be  said  that  the  present  war  was 
precipitated  upon  Europe  so  suddenly  that  one  had 
hardly  time  to  realize  it  before  war  was  upon  the 
stricken  land;  half  Germany's  plan  and  power  lay  in 
striking  quickly !  Yet,  for  some  days  prior  to  the  open- 
ing of  hostilities,  the  tension  had  been  rapidly  grow- 
ing between  the  opposing  countries,  and  it  was  becom- 
ing more  and  more  evident  that  a  peaceful  settlement 
was  not  likely  or  possible.  This  found  its  response  in 
a  like  tension  in  the  mind  of  our  potential  soldier ;  and 
this  tension  grew  as  events  became  more  exciting,— 
until  finally  he  began  "to  fizz  inside  like  a  bottle  of 
champagne,"  as  one  soldier  expressed  it.  The  order 
for  mobilization  and  the  ensuing  declaration  of  war 
came  almost  as  a  relief.  Emotions  had  reached  the 
"exploding  point,"  and  a  state  of  "mental  equilibri- 
um" was  found  to  ensue  when  this  tension  was  re- 
moved,— by  certainty,  instead  of  uncertainty, — convic- 
tion rather  than  rumour.  From  that  moment,  when 
the  civilian  donned  his  soldier's  clothes,  and  cast  his 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      31 

life  into  the  scales,  began  a  subtle  change  in  his  con- 
sciousness; the  individual  became  submerged,  to  a 
certain  extent,  in  society,  in  the  state ;  he  ceased  to  be 
an  important  element  in  the  community;  henceforward 
he  was  only  a  cog  in  the  wheel,  an  infinitesimal  part  of 
the  vast  human  machine  which  had  just  begun  to  move. 

Says  Dr.  George  W.  Crile,  in  his  Mechanistic  Con- 
ception of  War  and  Peace,  pp.  10-11 : 

''The  first  effect  of  the  declaration  of  war  was  the 
mobilization  of  the  forces  within  the  body  of  each  in- 
dividual in  the  warring  countries.  In  other  words,  the 
kinetic  system  *  of  each  individual  was  activated. 
There  was  an  increased  output  of  adrenalin,  of  thy- 
reoiodin,  of  glycogen;  and  an  increased  mobilization 
of  the  Nissl  substance  in  the  brain-cells,  from  all  of 
which  there  resulted  an  increased  transformation  of  en- 
ergy in  the  form  of  heat,  motion,  or  chemical  action. 
The  individual  moved  quickly;  he  sang  or  prayed,  his 
face  was  flushed ;  his  «heart  beat  faster ;  his  respiration 
was  quickened  and  there  was  usually  an  increase  in  his 
body  temperature.  Fight  gained  possession  of  the 
final  common  path ;  it  dispossessed  the  routine  activa- 
tions of  peaceful  occupation  and  human  relations.  In 
each  individual  the  organs  and  tissues  of  his  body  mo- 
bilized their  stores  of  energy  just  as  each  government 
mobilized  its  resources  of  men  and  material." 

And  further,  in  tracing  the  effects  upon  the  entire 
community,  he  says  (pp.  13-14) : — 

' '  During  the  season  of  mobilization,  then,  the  kinetic 

*  The  kinetic  system  is  the  group  of  organs  in  the  body  by  means 
of  which  man  and  animals  transform  the  potential  energy  contained 
in  food  into  muscular  action,  emotion,  body  heat;  in  short,  it  is  the 
system  by  whose  activity  life  is  expressed.  It  may  be  compared 
to  the  motor  of  an  automobile 


32    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

activation  of  the  people  is  expressed  by  inarching  and 
singing  on  the  part  of  those  going  to  battle,  and  by 
silence  or  weeping  by  those  left  at  home.  The  kinetic 
systems  of  those  who  fight  and  of  those  who  remain 
at  home  are  abnormally  active;  but,  in  the  first  stage 
at  least,  the  activating  substances  thrown  into  the  blood 
are  more  completely  utilized  by  the  muscular  activity 
of  the  marching  and  singing  husband  than  by  the  still 
and  sobbing  wife.  The  kinetic  systems  of  the  soldiers 
during  mobilization  are  less  strained  than  are  the  ki- 
netic systems  of  those  left  behind. 

'  *  The  activation  of  the  soldier  in  the  presence  of  ac- 
tual danger  as  facing  an  evenly  matched  enemy  is 
precisely  the  same  as  is  experienced  by  men  in  other 
situations  in  life, — in  the  first  encounter  with  big  game ; 
in  being  held  up  by  a  burglar ;  in  a  railway  accident ; 
or  in  facing  a  serious  surgical  operation;  although 
most  of  all  the  activation  of  battle  resembles  the  hunt- 
ing of  formidable  wild  beasts. 

"Man  in  war,  as  a  hunting  animal,  is  elusive,  re- 
sourceful, adaptive,  brave,  and  persistent.  When 
hunted,  man  turns  hunter  himself,  and  like  wolves  men 
hunt  in  packs.  Therefore  when  men  are  mutually 
hunting  each  other  their  brains  are  intensely  activated 
to  this  end,  and  all  other  relations  of  life  are  dispos- 
sessed." 

It  must  be  remembered  that  man,  en  masse,  is  a 
very  different  being  from  man  individual.  I  have  said 
above  that  the  soldier,  after  he  enters  the  army,  finds 
himself  ' '  only  a  cog  in  the  wheel,  an  infinitesimal  part 
of  the  vast  human  machine  which  has  just  begun  to 
move."  That  being  so,  his  individual  mind  or  con- 
sciousness gradually  gives  way  to  a  collective  con- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      33 

sciousness — to  the  "psychology  of  the  crowd" — a  very 
different  thing,  as  we  must  now  show. 

Gustav  Le  Bon,  in  his  classical  work  on  The  Crowd; 
A  Study  of  the  Popular  Mind,  says : — 

"The  most  striking  peculiarity  presented  by  a  psy- 
chological crowd  is  the  following :  Whoever  be  the  in- 
dividuals that  compose  it,  however  like  or  unlike  be 
their  mode  of  life,  their  occupations,  their  character, 
or  their  intelligence,  the  fact  that  they  have  been  trans- 
formed into  a  crowd  puts  them  in  possession  of  a  sort 
of  collective  mind  which  makes  them  feel,  think,  and 
act  in  a  manner  quite  different  from  that  in  which  each 
individual  of  them  would  think,  feel  and  act  were  he  in 
a  state  of  isolation.  There  are  certain  ideas  and  feel- 
ings which  do  not  come  into  being,  or  do  not  transform 
themselves  into  acts  except  in  the  case  of  individuals 
forming  a  crowd.  The  psychological  crowd  is  a  provi- 
sional being  formed  of  heterogeneous  elements,  which 
for  a  moment  are  combined,  exactly  as  the  cells  which 
constitute  a  living  body  form  by  their  reunion  a  new 
being  which  displays  characteristics  very  different 
from  those  possessed  by  each  of  the  cells  singly.  .  .  . 

"In  the  case  of  everything  that  belongs  to  the  realm 
of  sentiment — religion,  politics,  morality,  the  affec- 
tions and  antipathies,  etc. — the  most  eminent  men  sel- 
dom surpass  the  standard  of  the  most  ordinary  indi- 
viduals. From  the  intellectual  point-of-view  an  abyss 
may  exist  between  a  great  mathematician  and  his  boot- 
maker, but  from  the  point-of-view  of  character  the  dif- 
ference is  most  often  slight  or  non-existent. 

"It  is  precisely  these  general  qualities  of  character, 
governed  by  forces  of  which  we  are  unconscious,  and 
possessed  by  the  majority  of  the  normal  individuals 
of  a  race  in  much  the  same  degree — it  is  precisely  these 


34    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

qualities,  I  say,  that  in  crowds  become  common  prop- 
erty. In  the  collective  mind,  the  individual  aptitudes 
of  the  individuals,  and  in  consequence  their  individual- 
ity, are  weakened.  The  heterogeneous  is  swamped  by 
the  homogeneous,  and  the  unconscious  qualities  obtain 
the  upper  hand.  .  .  . 

"We  see,  then,  that  the  disappearance  of  the  con- 
scious personality,  the  predominance  of  the  uncon- 
scious personality,  the  turning  by  means  of  suggestion 
and  contagion  of  feelings  and  ideas  in  an  identical  di- 
rection, the  tendency  to  immediately  transform  the 
suggested  ideas  into  acts ;  these,  we  see,  are  the  prin- 
cipal characteristics  of  the  individual  forming  part  of 
a  crowd.  He  is  no  longer  himself,  but  has  become  an 
automaton  who  has  ceased  to  be  guided  by  his 
will.  .  .  ."  (pp.  29-36). 

The  mentality  of  men  in  crowds  is  absolutely  unlike 
that  which  they  possess  when  isolated,  for  an  assem- 
blage of  men  is  as  different  from  the  individuals  of 
whom  it  is  made-up  as  is  any  living  being  from  its 
component  cells. 

Reason  has  very  little  influence  upon  the  collective 
mind,  which  is  governed  by  collective  logic,  a  form 
strictly  peculiar  to  it.  Intellectually  collective  man 
always  appears  inferior  to  individual  man,  but  may 
be  superior  to  him  in  the  domain  of  the  feelings ;  for 
although  certain  feelings,  like  gratitude,  for  instance, 
are  unknown  to  the  crowd,  it  possesses  others,  such 
as  altruism,  devotion  to  the  general  welfare,  and  even 
heroism,  which  are  far  more  difficult  to  put  in  practice. 
The  powers  of  the  average  man  are  increased  by  join- 
ing a  collectivity,  while  those  of  the  superior  man  are 
curtailed. 

The  emotions  of  the  crowd  are  both  intense  and 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIEE      35 

fickle,  thus  allowing  it  to  change  quickly  from  adora- 
tion to  hatred,  and  as  it  is  lacking  in  the  sense  of  prac- 
tical possibilities,  hope  is  its  principal  nourishment. 
The  mysticism  with  which  it  is  impregnated  induces  it 
to  attribute  magic  powers  to  the  leader  who  beguiles 
it,  and  to  the  brief  formulas  which  synthesize  its  de- 
sires. Mental  contagion  operates  upon  isolated  indi- 
viduals as  well  as  upon  collectivities,  but  as  the  latter 
do  not  reason  it  plays  the  leading  part  among  them. 

The  crowd  is  likewise  very  receptive  of  illusions, 
which  acquire  the  force  of  truths  from  the  mere  fact  of 
becoming  collective.  The  present  war  furnishes  nu- 
merous examples  of  this  law. 

Collective  opinion  has  a  great  deal  of  strength,  which 
is  seldom  spontaneous,  however,  for  the  crowd  is  really 
an  amorphous  organism  that  is  incapable  of  action  un- 
less it  has  a  leader,  who  influences  it  by  affirmation, 
repetition,  prestige,  and  contagion,  all  of  them  meth- 
ods of  persuasion  peculiar  to  effective  logic. 

There  must  always  be  a  leader  to  create  and  direct 
public  opinion,  even  in  the  case  of  national  conflicts, 
though  this  leader  need  not  be  a  man  who  harangues 
the  crowd,  for  his  part  may  be  played  by  beliefs  or 
inherited  feelings  which  certain  circumstances  have 
violently  inflamed.  But  the  real  starting-point  of  pop- 
ular opinion  is  invariably  the  leader  or  the  great  event 
which  acts  as  his  substitute. 

It  is  into  this  psychological  maelstrom  that  the  sol- 
dier is  plunged ;  and  in  it  he  soon  loses  his  original  in- 
dividual "self"  to  a  very  great  extent.  Inasmuch  as 
the  man  is  psychologically  the  result,  very  largely,  of 
his  reactions  to  his  environment,  and  its  stimuli,  it  is 
only  natural  that  this  should  be  so.  When  he  becomes 
a  cog  in  the  ' '  war  machine, ' '  he  becomes  a  part  of  it,  as 


36    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

we  have  said;  he  constitutes  a  part  of  the  army,  and 
is  no  longer  "himself."  As  one  soldier  expressed  it, 
writing  of  his  own  inner  impressions,  and  his  study  of 
his  companions  in  arms : — 

"By  some  astounding  miracle,  when  the  reservist 
puts  on  his  uniform  his  state  of  mind  suddenly  changes, 
his  feeling  of  individuality  weakens,  and  he  acquires 
the  new  sense  of  the  collective  life.  He  is  no  longer 
a  grocer,  a  blacksmith,  or  a  farmer,  but  a  part  of  the 
machine.  His  personal  ideas  disappear  and  some  mys- 
terious force  impels  him  to  think  and  act  like  all  the 
others.  If  he  hears  people  around  him  saying,  'The 
enemy  is  in  a  bad  way,  we'll  finish  him  at  a  bite,'  he 
is  sure  that  his  adversary  is  a  weak,  ridiculous  crea- 
ture, altogether  to  be  despised;  but  if  his  neighbour 
tells  him  the  awful  secret,  'We  are  betrayed,'  he  is 
equally  certain  that  all  his  officers  sold  him  to  the  foe. 

"If  there  comes  a  shout  of  'Every  man  for  himself,' 
when  our  soldier  is  feeling  the  strong  emotions  of  the 
battlefield,  all  his  sensible  ideas  are  swept  clean  out 
of  him,  and  he  takes  to  his  heels  like  a  madman,  with- 
out a  moment's  thought  and  without  paying  the  slight- 
est attention  whether  the  danger  is  real  or  not." 

We  thus  see  the  change  which  has  come  over  the 
mind  of  the  soldier,  during  even  the  first  days  of  his 
mobilization  and  training.  He  has  begun  to  assume  a 
new  character,  to  be  a  new  being.  With  his  altered 
environment,  with  his  change  of  clothing,  and  the  whole 
routine  of  his  daily  life,  he  gradually  loses  his  former 
self,  and  becomes  a  new  man.  From  the  civilian  he  has 
been  transformed,  in  short,  into  a  soldier. 

From  that  moment,  our  soldier  enters  upon  a  new 
life.  Little  by  little,  as  we  shall  see,  the  world  he  has 
left  fades  from  his  view,  and  even  from  his  memory. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIEE      37 

The  past  becomes  blurred  and  unreal.  The  present — 
the  vital  present — assumes  the  place  of  unique  impor- 
tance. The  simple  and  strict  life,  the  monotony  of  re- 
peated acts  done  over  and  over  again,  the  discipline, 
the  constant  straining  of  the  senses,  the  clouding  of 
the  finer  sensibilities,  the  continued  fight  for  life,  the 
lack  of  all  truly  intellectual  stimulation  or  companion- 
ship, the  lack  of  any  possibility  of  initiative  or  indi- 
vidual action — so  frequent  and  important  in  our  daily 
lives — all  tend  to  reduce  the  mental  activities  to  their 
lowest  possible  level,  and  induce  a  state  of  simple 
childishness  and  even  vacuity  which  is  strongly  in  con- 
trast to  the  state  of  the  same  man's  mind  under  nor- 
mal, civil  conditions. 

Man's  hereditary  personality  is  deep-rooted  and 
deep-seated.  But  he  is  greatly  influenced  and  changed 
by  exterior  conditions  and  circumstances.  His  per- 
sonality may,  in  fact,  be  said  to  be  the  result  of  the 
interplay  between  Ijis  exterior  environment  and  his 
interior  being.  As  these  external  circumstances  alter, 
so  the  man  is  found  to  alter  also — quickly  or  gradually, 
according  to  the  mental  make-up  of  the  individual  sol- 
dier. But  he  is  changed  under  all  circumstances.  He 
must  be !  And,  in  the  case  of  the  common  soldier,  this 
change  is  profound.  No  environmental  change  in  his 
life  has  ever  been  so  vast  and  so  radical  as  this.  Army 
mano3uvres,  which  approached  it  the  most  nearly,  were 
but  feeble  in  comparison, — and  brief  rather  than  pro- 
tracted. Nothing  can  disturb  the  existing  environ- 
ment as  war  does.  For  here  the  surrounding  country 
is  destitute,  desolate,  burned;  the  railways  are  torn 
up;  buildings  are  razed,  crops  destroyed,  and  every 
semblance  of  order  and  civilization  gone.  Nothing 
short  of  actual  war  can  possibly  imitate  this,  even 


38    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  AVAR 

faintly.  It  is  a  different  world;  and  this  in  turn  cre- 
ates a  different  mental  world  in  the  being  dwelling 
within  such  an  altered  zone. 

All  the  letters  received  from  the  soldiers  at  the 
Front  indicate  how  quickly  they  become  accustomed 
to  their  new  lives.  The  following  shows  the  part  which 
is  played  by  habit,  as  well  as  the  ease  with  which  the 
soldier  adapts  himself  to  conditions  of  strife  that  are 
quite  contrary  to  his  atavistic  mentality:— 

"Nothing  dismays  me  now;  no  matter  how  the 
shells  and  bullets  may  whistle  I  do  not  lose  my  com- 
posure as  I  did  in  the  beginning;  and  it  is  the  same 
with  all  of  us.  When  the  first  battles  took  place  we  en- 
gaged too  soon;  for  the  bayonet  charge  was  all  we 
thought  of,  and  by  making  too  much  haste  we  got  our- 
selves shot.  But  now  we  crawl  on  our  stomachs  when 
we  attack  and  we  use  the  tiniest  clod  of  earth  as  cover, 
so  that  we  fire  upon  the  Germans  as  we  like,  and  some- 
times they  do  not  even  know  where  the  shots  come 
from.  The  last  time  we  went  into  action  we  had  an-  al- 
most untenable  position,  and  had  to  repel  flank  and 
frontal  attacks  at  the  same  time;  and  not  one  of  us 
flinched. ' ' 

Stability  of  personality  is  thus  seen  to  depend  solely 
upon  permanence  of  environment,  for  as  soon  as  a 
change  takes  place  in  the  latter,  the  equilibria  of  the 
elements  which  form  an  individual's  mental  life  are 
overthrown,  with  the  result  that  new  equilibria  are 
established  and  he  gains  a  new  personality. 

Such  transformations  of  personality  constitute  a 
phenomenon  which  often  occurs  during  revolutionary 
periods,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  and  which  the  present 
war  permits  us  to  observe  without  difficulty. 

It  is  impossible  to  foresee  the  nature  and  hence  the 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      39 

behaviour  of  a  personality  thus  hastily  constructed. 
The  men  who  lived  under  the  Terror  have  left  us  many 
examples  of  the  fact  that  the  mildest  individual  may 
become  eager  to  shed  blood  and,  even  without  going 
so  far  afield,  we  may  assert  that  no  one  could  have 
predicted  either  the  barbarity  of  the  German  intellec- 
tuals in  the  present  war  or  the  good  qualities  of  which 
the  French  have  given  proof. 

Such  changes  of  personality  have  been  noticed  daily 
during  the  war,  and  I  shall  have  occasion  to  mention 
several  of  them  which  are  very  striking;  but  for  the 
present  I  shall  confine  myself  to  a  quotation  from  the 
remarks  made  by  Kudyard  Kipling,  after  he  had  paid 
a  visit  to  the  Front : — 

''You  know,  when  supreme  trial  overtakes  an  ac- 
quaintance whom  till  then  we  conceived  we  knew,  how 
the  man's  nature  sometimes  changes  past  knowledge 
or  belief.  He  who  was  altogether  such  an  one  as  our- 
selves goes  forward  simply,  even  lightly,  to  heights 
We  thought  unattainable.  Though  he  is  the  very  same 
comrade  that  lived  our  small  life  with  us,  yet  in  all 
things  he  has  become  great.  So  it  is  with  France  to- 
day. She  has  discovered  the  measure  of  her  soul. ' ' 

Patriotism,  the  heritage  of  the  dead,  is  one  of  those 
supreme  forces  which  are  created  by  long  ancestral 
accumulations,  and  whose  strength  is  revealed  at  criti- 
cal moments.  It  was  patriotism  which  rallied  to  its 
banner  on  the  very  day  war  was  declared  the  Pacifists, 
Syndicalists,  Socialists,  and  others  who  belonged  to 
parties  that  were  apparently  most  refractory  to  its 
influence;  nor  could  their  unanimous  support  have 
been  won  had  patriotism  not  been  an  unconscious  force 
whose  impetus  swept  every  argument  aside. 

M.  Sabatier,  in  his  Frenchman's  Thoughts  on  the 


40    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

War,  thus  beautifully  describes  his  impressions  on  the 
day  of  mobilization : — 

'  *  The  two  churches  of  the  village  were  almost  empty ; 
and,  what  was  better,  so  were  the  cabarets.  The  great 
day  of  mobilization  for  our  district  was  Monday,  the 
3rd  of  August.  On  this  Sunday  there  were  a  few  iso- 
lated departures,  but  no  one  knew  of  them,  and  I  did 
not  see  them.  On  the  following  day  I  was  cowardly. 
I  should  have  liked  to  return  to  the  village,  to  press 
the  departing  soldiers  to  my  heart.  My  courage  failed 
me.  Still  obsessed  by  the  memory  of  1870,  I  feared, 
not  scenes  of  emotion,  but  a  display  of  distressing  pa- 
triotism, cries  of  hatred,  stupid  boasts  and  threats, 
drinking  songs  alternating  with  and  profaning  our  na- 
tional anthems.  I  climbed  a  neighbouring  hill  whence 
with  a  pair  of  binoculars  one  can  plainly  see  what  is 
happening  on  a  number  of  the  more  important  high- 
ways of  the  district.  It  was  shortly  after  three  o  'clock 
that  I  first  noticed,  on  the  further  side  of  a  deep,  nar- 
row valley,  something  like  a  long,  dark  ribbon  which 
seemed  to  move. 

'  *  Then  suddenly  the  Marseillaise  burst  forth,  rever- 
berated by  all  the  echoes  of  the  mountain,  but  there 
was  something  reserved  and  controlled  about  it;  it 
had  almost  the  accent  of  a  psalm.  Overcome  by  in- 
tense feeling,  standing  alone  up  there  on  the  crest  of 
the  hill,  I  joined  from  afar  in  the  song  of  our  sol- 
diers who  were  leaving  for  the  front,  until  the  moment 
when  the  turn  of  the  road  hid  them  from  my  sight. 

"The  sun  shone  out,  and  on  all  the  other  highways 
other  interminable  processions  were  descending  to- 
wards the  railway-stations  with  the  same  order,  with 
the  slow  heavy  pace  of  our  peasants  when  they  set  out 
for  the  days  of  sowing.  And  the  dear  fellows  were  in- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      41 

deed  setting  forth  to  sow — to  sow  the  best  blood  of 
France.  ..." 

As  one  leaves  the  life  of  the  city,  and  approaches  the 
front,  one  passes  through  two  spheres  or  "zones." 
The  foremost  is  the  "war-zone,"  which  gradually 
shades  off  into  the  "civil  zone,"  as  the  rear  of  the  first 
zone  is  approached.  Insensibly  they  shade  off  into  one 
another.  When  a  wounded  soldier  leaves  the  firing- 
line  and  is  transported  to  the  rear,  he  passes  from 
the  war-zone  to  the  civil-zone,  and  notices  the  differ- 
ence at  once.  At  the  same  time,  he  carries  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  former  zone  with  him  (if  newly  arrived), 
and  particularly  is  this  the  case  if  he  is  badly  wounded, 
and  has  had  no  opportunity  of  observing  the  gradual 
stages  of  transition  through  which  he  has  passed. 
One  can  see  from  this,  then,  the  importance  of  obtain- 
ing interviews  with  soldiers  at  once,  upon  their  return 
from  the  front, — fqr  they  would  be  apt,  otherwise,  to 
begin  to  change  immediately  in  their  viewpoints,  on 
again  emerging  into  normal  life,  in  the  civil  zone  of 
activities. 

As  the  soldier  leaves  the  civil  zone,  on  the  contrary, 
and  passes  to  the  front,  everything  becomes  altered 
for  him.  He  notices  the  altered  conditions  of  the  coun- 
try. Women  and  children  become  more  and  more 
scarce,  and  finally  disappear  altogether.  Civil  life 
vanishes;  only  military  life  is  anywhere  encountered. 
Every  one  he  meets  thinks  as  he  does,  about  the  same 
subjects,  in  the  same  way ;  every  one  is  dressed  alike ; 
every  one's  thought  runs  in  the  same  narrow  groove. 
There  is  no  longer  the  clash  of  opinion,  the  interchange 
of  rival  thoughts.  Gradually,  imperceptibly,  the  im- 
ages and  thoughts  of  ordinary  civil  life  begin  to  fade; 


42    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAK 

thoughts  of  home,  wife,  friends,  even,  begin  to  grow 
dim  and  recede  in  the  memory.  The  present,  the  vital 
present,  occupies  and  grips  the  mind.  Intellect  gives 
way  to  sense  impressions.  The  mind  of  the  civilian 
has  given  place  to  that  of  the  combatant.  Henceforth, 
we  must  study  the  mind  of  the  soldier  as  a  thing  apart, 
— as  separate  and  distinct  from  that  of  any  other  hu- 
man being.  He  both  thinks  and  acts  differently  from 
any  other  man  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

In  studying  the  psychology  of  the  soldier,  however, 
we  are  approaching  a  big  problem;  and  in  order  to 
study  it  thoroughly  and  systematically,  we  must  di- 
vide-up our  subject  into  three  or  four  sub-headings. 
We  shall  first  of  all  see  how  the  mind  of  the  soldier 
"works"  in  the  camps,  or  so-called  "Cantonments"; 
then  we  shall  consider  the  soldier  in  the  general 
trenches ;  then  in  the  isolated  trenches ;  and  finally  we 
shall  come  to  the  mind  of  the  soldier  who  is  actually 
attacking,  and  see  what  is  in  his  mind,  under  these  al- 
tered circumstances  and  conditions. 

1.  In  the  Cantonment. — The  sojourn  in  the  camp  or 
cantonment  varies  considerably,  in  point  of  time,  and 
the  character  of  the  soldier 's  abode  varies  proportion- 
ately. In  France,  those  which  were  occupied  but  a 
brief  time  were  usually  built  of  branches  and  twigs; 
those  occupied  for  considerable  periods  were  quite 
elaborate,  and  supplied  with  drains,  electric  lights  and 
numerous  contrivances  for  the  comfort  of  the  occu- 
pants. In  these  cantonments  a  unique  and  intense  so- 
cial life  exists.  They  are  probably  the  most  ideally 
co-operative  communities  in  the  world.  Each  man 
gives  and  does  what  he  can  for  the  good  of  all.  The 
bricklayer  builds;  the  pipe-maker  makes  pipes  (from 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER     43 

the  enemy's  empty  cartridge  cases,  very  often!) ;  the 
electrician,  the  plumber,  the  carpenter — every  trade 
and  profession,  in  fact,  finds  opportunity  to  contribute 
to  the  common  cause  and  common  comfort.  Flower- 
pots are  made  from  exploded  shells ;  pictures  are  paint- 
ed by  the  artist ;  even  journals  are  edited  and  printed 
by  the  literary  members  of  the  community.  The  can- 
tonment is,  in  fact,  a  veritable  hive  of  industrial,  man- 
ual activity.  There  is,  moreover,  in  all  that  is  done, 
an  element  of  joy,  of  fun,  which  is  lacking  at  ordinary 
times.  Each  man  contributes  what  he  can,  from  what 
he  knows.  Generals  and  privates  alike  contribute  to 
the  general  fund  or  "pool."  There  is  a  state  of  per- 
petual animation — and  yet  it  is  limited  animation, 
strictly  circumscribed,  admitting  of  no  great  change, 
rarely  stepping  beyond  certain  well-defined  limits. 
The  work  being  nearly  all  manual,  the  body  begins  to 
assume  a  prominent,  even  predominant  place  in  the 
thoughts, — while  the  mind  assumes  a  second-rate  im- 
portance. The  great  regularity  and  discipline,  also, 
tend  to  make  the  mind  simple  and  rhythmical ;  its  even 
flow  is  disturbed  only  by  the  arrival  of  some  general  or 
high  official,  for  whom  special  preparations  are  neces- 
sary. This  alone  breaks  the  monotony,  and  places  the 
men  in  touch, — for  a  few  moments,  as  it  were, — with 
the  outside  world.  But  on  their  departure,  the  same 
monotonous,  rigid,  rhythmic  life  begins  anew. 

All  this  tends  to  make  the  mind  simple,  primitive, 
almost  vacuous.  Original  thinking  is  gradually  oblit- 
erated, all  the  thinking  is  done  by  the  officers.  The 
soldiers  have  only  to  obey  orders!  They  gradually 
fall  into  this  habit  of  letting  others  do  their  thinking 
for  them,  and  merely  follow  instructions.  Terrible  as 
this  picture  may  appear  to  the  reader,  it  nevertheless 


44    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  AVAR 

has  its  bright  side,  as  we  shall  presently  see;  and  it 
may  be  said  that  one  of  the  great  lessons  which  the 
present  war  has  taught  us  is  this :  that  too  great  initi- 
ative in  a  soldier  is  not  to  be  desired.  Only  on  certain 
occasions  is  this  beneficial;  at  other  times,  simple  obe- 
dience will  serve  the  soldier  best. 

It  is  a  psychological  fact  of  great  importance  and 
significance,  that  those  at  the  front  have  the  greatest 
confidence.  The  nearer  the  front  we  penetrate,  the 
greater  this  feeling  of  confidence  becomes.  These  men 
know  that  they  can  resist  the  attack  of  the  enemy ;  they 
have  done  so  before,  and  they  feel  that  they  can  do 
so  again.  As  one  approaches  the  rear,  this  feeling  of 
confidence  wanes,  until  we  reach  its  antithesis  in  the 
civil  zone,  where  the  feeling  of  personal  fearlessness 
and  confidence  is  almost  entirely  lacking.  It  is  pre- 
cisely analogous  to  the  prize-fighter,  trained  for  the 
ring.  He  himself  is  supremely  confident  of  the  result 
of  the  contest.  Only  those  who  have  never  fought  have 
this  feeling  of  fear,  of  lack  of  confidence. 

Physical  training  gives  confidence  to  a  man.  His 
confidence  in  himself  increases  in  precise  ratio  to  his 
physical  condition.  And  this  is  one  of  the  great  rea- 
sons why  a  prolonged  system  of  military  training  is 
necessary, — to  fit  the  modern  soldier  for  war.  Its  ef- 
fects are  mental  and  moral  no  less  than  physical  and 
physiological.  Superbly  fit,  he  feels  that  nothing  can 
withstand  him,  as  he  marches  off  to  war.  At  the  same 
time,  this  fact  should  also  show  us  the  utter  unreason- 
ableness of  depending  upon  a  rapidly  raised  volunteer 
force  to  meet  veterans  trained  in  war.  No  matter  how 
bravely  they  might  fight,  even  in  superior  numbers, 
they  would  be  bound  to  go  down  in  defeat  before  sea- 
soned veterans,  whose  training  and  experience  had 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER     45 

caused  them  to  have  a  profound  confidence  in  their  own 
prowess, — no  less  than  a  knowledge  of  the  game  of  war. 
Confidence  is  a  state  of  mind,  a  matter  of  thought. 
Constancy  is  a  state  of  will,  a  matter  of  action. 

"  Constancy,  firmness  of  mind  (which  the  ancients, 
remember,  placed  in  the  first  ranks  of  the  virtues), 
holds  fast  to  its  purpose,  whatever  may  befall;  per- 
severes in  its  design  or  its  duty;  never  flinches  on  the 
field  of  battle ;  never  fails  in  the  tasks  of  civil  life,  and 
throws  through  all  its  actions  the  continuous  woof  of 
an  unchanging  will,  which  no  accident  has  power  to 
break. 

* '  Of  this  virtue  France  has  afforded  many  examples, 
and  examples  of  very  different  kinds. 

"The  crowds  on  the  day  of  mobilization  behaved 
magnificently ;  for  a  crowd  may  behave  well  in  a  public 
plaoe,  just  as  a  battalion  may  behave  well  in  a  fighting 
line.  In  that  solemn  moment  we  saw  the  storm  of  the 
summons  pass  over  "them,  yet  not  a  cry  was  heard, 
not  a  head  was  bowed;  only  in  some  a  quiver  of  the 
eyelids,  as  when  the  dust  rides  upon  the  wind.  The 
multitude  hastened  to  the  railway  stations,  but  there 
were  no  collisions,  no  complaints;  it  was  a  spectacle 
of  collective  dignity  which  taught  me  more  and  moved 
me  more  than  all  the  books  written  upon  the  past  and 
all  the  scenes  of  history. 

* '  A  masterpiece  of  constancy  was  the  attitude  of  the 
soldier  who,  retreating  from  the  bank  of  the  Arden' 
naise  river  to  Vitry-le-Franc,ois,  defeated  on  the  first 
day,  and  then  twice  victorious,  yet  retiring  in  order, 
finally  standing  fast,  to  fall  wounded,  but  still  victori- 
ous, and  this  time  for  good.  I  am  speaking  of  a  sol- 
dier who  told  me  the  whole  story;  a  soldier  who  has 


46    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

a  name,  but  who  is  like  a  brother  to  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  other  soldiers. 

"Constancy,  again,  explains  the  resignation  with 
which  our  armies  have  accepted  the  life  of  the  trenches. 
It  was  not  congenial  to  the  French  soldier,  an  open-air 
soldier,  as  was  his  Gaulish  ancestor.  But  he  adopted 
it,  sadly  at  first,  then  almost  gaily,  and  almost  bravely. 
And  I  am  not  sure  whether  Valerius  Maximus  has  not 
cited  some  story  of  this  kind  as  an  example  of  military 
constancy. 

"It  is  a  virtue  of  the  same  order  that  has  been  ex- 
hibited by  so  many  of  our  friends  in  town  and  country. 
I  should  have  liked  to  name  them,  for  they  were  our 
masters  in  the  matter  of  moral  duty,  and  they  have 
succeeded  in  lighting-up  these  long  months  of  mourn- 
ing by  the  beauty  of  their  actions.  This  peasant  has 
just  harvested,  without  a  word  of  lamentation,  the  field 
which  was  sown  by  his  dead  son.  This  mother,  on  re- 
ceiving the  news  that  her  son  was  killed,  went  forth  to 
console  the  wounded  who  yet  lived.  This  schoolmaster 
in  a  bombarded  city  quietly  retired,  during  the  menace 
of  the  shells,  to  a  cellar  turned  into  a  schoolroom, 
where  he  was  joined  by  a  flock  of  still  joyous  children. 
This  famous  professor  lost  the  last  son  remaining  to 
him,  and  on  receiving  the  telegram  he  slowly  took  his 
chair  to  dictate  to  his  pupils  the  task  of  the  day.  And 
we  might  cite  a  thousand  facts  of  the  kind." 

To  return,  however,  to  our  Cantonment.  Limited  as 
the  men  are  in  their  mental  horizon,  the  physical  ener- 
gies, doubled  by  their  healthy  outdoor  life  and  simple 
food,  must  find  vent  for  their  expression.  Constant 
drill,  marching  and  exercising  work  off  part  of  it; 
manual  work  of  various  kinds  also  affords  an  ontlet; 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      47 

but  the  pent-up  energies  must  find  still  other  channels, 
and  in  the  enforced  absence  of  sexual  life  or  gratifica- 
tion, this  finds  its  outlet  in  playfulness, — in  gossip,  jok- 
ing, horseplay,  pleasantry,  gaiety,  practical  jokes,  or  at 
times  in  fighting,  much  as  school  boys  would  fight  among 
themselves.  It  forms  an  outlet  for  their  exuberant  en- 
ergies; there  is  no  deep-seated  hatred  for  the  rival. 
Fortunately,  however,  these  fights  are  comparatively 
rare ;  and  the  latent  energy  generally  finds  a  more  use- 
ful and  less  dangerous  channel  for  its  expenditure. 

As  the  anonymous  author  of  that  entertaining  little 
book,  Conscript  2989,  tells  us : — 

"...  None  of  us  has  grown  up.  We  are  all  like 
big  boys,  and  we  spend  with  no  thought  of  the  morrow. 
.  .  .  We  mill  around  with  the  crowd,  and  soon  are 
pushed  against  a  counter.  Something  attracts  our  eye. 
We  feel  a  desire  to  possess  it.  We  buy  it,  and  start 
milling  about  the  room  again  until  presently  we  are 
near  the  door.  Then,  we  step  out  into  the  night  again 
and  join  one  of  the  groups  of  loiterers  or  sit  about  on 
boxes  and  piles  of  lumber,  where  we  devour  our  pur- 
chase, if  it  happens  to  be  in  the  line  of  crackers  (as  is 
usually  the  case),  or  admire  it,  if  it  happens  to  be  a 
pocket  flash-lamp,  a  fountain  pen  or  something  else  that 
we  really  never  have  had  any  use  for.  ..." 

In  these  cantonments,  many  humorous  circulars  are 
printed  and  even  weekly  journals  are  issued.  They  are 
typical  of  the  mind  of  the  soldier,  and  represent  the 
collective  soul  of  the  combatants.  The  French  par- 
ticularly have  excelled  in  this.  For  example,  they  have 
issued  a  periodical,  in  the  Champagne,  entitled  Le 
Poilu,  which  defines  itself  as  "A  journal,  humorous, 
literary,  and  artistic,  of  the  life  of  the  troglodytes ;  to 
appear  when  and  where  it  can."  It  contains  impres- 


48    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

sions  of  the  war,  messages  from  home,  news  and  bulle- 
tins, Eabelaisian  sonnets  and  other  material.  An- 
other, entitled  La  Gazette  des  Tranchees  (issued  in 
the  Argonne),  "an  organ  founded  to  maintain  the 
spirit  of  mirth  in  France,"  gives  scraps  of  Parisian 
life,  of  the  Boulevards,  etc.,  in  the  character  of  a  gen- 
eral "Revue."  Another,  L'Echo  des  Marmites,  has  a 
sub-title,  "The  only  Daily — No  connection  with  Ber- 
lin!" Still  another,  Le  Petit  Voisognard,  gay  and 
sprightly  in  tone,  contains  a  variety  of  humorous  ma- 
terial. The  American  Army  has  already  begun  its  own 
papers,  along  similar  lines.  In  addition  to  these  peri- 
odicals, issued  from  the  camps  and  trenches,  the  sol- 
diers have  organized  concerts,  theatricals,  "revues," 
and  many  other  forms  of  entertainment,  to  which  each 
contributes  something  (often  excellent  talent)  and 
printed  programmes  are  issued  for  the  most  ambitious 
of  these. 

The  soldiers  have  also  invented  or  coined  a  number 
of  new  words  and  phrases  of  their  own,  so  that  they 
now  have  a  regular  "jargon," — all  but  unintelligible 
to  the  uninitiated.  Thus,  the  French  have  introduced 
such  words  as  "gring,"  "pinard,"  etc.;  while  the  Eng- 
lish soldier  speaks  of  "Black  Marias,"  "Jack  John- 
sons," of  being  "spiffed,"  "put  in  a  bag,"  etc.;  and 
doubtless  the  Italian  and  Russian  soldiers  have  done 
much  the  same  thing.  Every  trade  or  profession  has 
coined  such  words,  which  the  outsider  can  hardly  be 
expected  to  know. 

While  the  foregoing  may  seem  to  indicate  a  great 
fund  of  surface  gaiety  among  the  soldiers  (and  indeed 
there  is  a  good  deal,  at  times),  there  is,  nevertheless, 
a  subdued  tension  and  gravity,  which  runs  as  an  under- 
current through  their  entire  life.  Especially  is  this 


true  of  the  French  soldiers.  They  no  longer  gather 
'round  the  camp  fires  and  tell  stories  as  they  did  in 
the  war  of  1870.  Then,  long  romances  in  serial  form 
were  narrated  by  a  good  story-teller.  Now,  on  the 
contrary,  all  this  surface  pleasantry  seems  to  find  ex- 
pression in  writing, — in  the  periodicals  which  are  cir- 
culated in  the  cantonments  and  trenches.  Now,  when 
the  soldiers  talk  together,  it  is  usually  of  passing 
events,  simple  remarks  and  pleasantries,  originating 
on  the  surface,  and  rarely  or  never  do  these  conver- 
sations touch  upon  "deep"  topics — religious,  domestic, 
emotional,  etc.  One  might  be  tempted  to  imagine  that, 
under  the  existing  circumstances,  with  death  so  near, 
men's  minds  would  seem  to  turn  naturally  to  the  more 
serious  phases  of  life;  they  do  not  seem  to.  The 
deeply  intellectual  life  seems  dormant,  entranced,  in 
abeyance.  The  monotony  of  the  daily  occupation  has 
temporarily  killed  it.  Sensory  and  physical  interests 
have  usurped  its  place.  Yet  this  fact,  too,  should  be 
noted.  Very  rarely  is  the  language  of  the  men  ob- 
scene. It  is  rather  trivial  and  egoistic.  It  seems  to 
revolve  around  each  man's  own  needs — his  own  feel- 
ings and  personal  safety.  Curiously  enough,  too,  but 
little  is  said  about  the  war  en  bloc  in  these  canton- 
ments. The  soldiers  are  occupied  with  their  own  par- 
ticular sphere  of  activity  and  interests.  Broader  think- 
ing seems  to  be  left  to  the  superior  officers. 

Contrary  to  what  one  would  expect,  all  the  men  who 
have  passed  a  considerable  period  of  time  in  the  can- 
tonments assert  that  time  seems  to  pass  quickly  there 
—in  spite  of  the  extreme  monotony  of  the  life.  It  is 
rarely  found  to  "drag."  Probably  this  is  on  account 
of  the  monotony  of  the  impressions.  A  cat  or  a  dog 
does  not  seem  to  get  "bored"  with  the  length  of  his 


50    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

day, — no  matter  how  little  he  may  be  busied  with  life. 
At  such  times,  men  seem  to  become  like  these  ani- 
mals— content  to  live  without  thinking,  with  empty 
minds,  living  on  the  impressions  of  the  senses.  They 
do  not  suffer  mentally;  only  physically.  They  go  to 
services  or  mass  regularly,  even  if  they  are  not  at  all 
religious,  and  not  in  the  habit  of  doing  so  at  home. 
They  display,  in  short,  an  extreme  docility  and  lack 
of  personal  criticism.  They  feel  sad  when  the  dead  are 
brought  in;  but  feel  a  curiously  detached  attitude  to- 
wards them,  and  look  upon  this  more  as  a  historical 
event  than  as  a  personal  affair,  in  which  they  too  may 
be  destined  soon  to  play  the  principal  role.  Each  sol- 
dier has  seen  but  a  small  and  limited  portion  of  the 
field  of  battle,  it  must  be  remembered,  and  for  this 
reason  his  consciousness  is  contracted.  In  nearly  all 
cases  this  curious  state  of  abstraction  or  absent-mind- 
edness is  noticed  among  men  living  in  the  trenches  or 
cantonments. 

In  these  camps,  the  soldiers  often  tend  to  chafe  un- 
der the  strict  discipline  enforced,  but  as  soon  as  the 
advance  begins,  these  same  men  instinctively  feel  its 
necessity  and  fall  into  line  readily.  With  the  advance, 
they  adapt  themselves  at  once  to  war.  Even  the  older 
men,  who — one  would  think — might  be  tempted  to  re- 
bel at  the  leadership  of  far  younger  men  than  them- 
selves, fail  to  experience  this  feeling  in  the  least.  In- 
stinctively, the  soldier  realizes  the  all-importance  of 
instruction  and  discipline.  Of  course,  this  only  holds 
good  in  those  cases  where  the  officers  treat  the  men 
fairly  and  justly,  and  are  honoured  and  beloved  by 
them.  When  a  case  of  unjust  provocation  arises,  in- 
dignation is  at  once  shown.  Fortunately,  however, 
such  cases  are  few  in  the  Allied  armies. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER     51 

We  may  sum-up,  then,  by  saying  that  the  mind  of 
the  average  soldier,  in  the  cantonments,  undergoes  a 
temporary  degeneration,  due  to  the  fact  that  it  acts 
in  vacancy,  instead  of  attaching  itself  to  things;  the  mo- 
notony of  the  stimuli  acts  in  a  hypnotic  manner,  caus- 
ing the  mind  to  become  simple  and  vacuous.  The  sen- 
timents undergo  the  same  oscillations  as  the  thoughts. 
Soldiers  become  like  children ;  they  have  frequent  dis- 
putes, which  they  refer  to  their  officers  for  settlement. 
The  officer  who  can  settle  such  disputes  justly  and  sat- 
isfactorily to  both  disputants  is  adored  by  his  men. 
While  these  rules  do  not,  of  course,  apply  to  all  men 
alike,  it  may  be  said  confidently  that  they  represent 
accurately  the  mind  of  the  average  soldier  in  the  can- 
tonment, during  periods  of  relative  inaction.  We  must 
now  study  the  psychology  of  the  soldier  in  the  trenches 
—both  the  inter-communicating  and  the  isolated 
trenches.  This  may  be  said  to  be  a  sort  of  intermedi- 
ate step  between  the.  camp,  and  the  soldier  in  actual 
combat. 

2.  In  the  Trenches. — The  movement  and  noise  in 
the  advanced  trenches  is  terrific  and  incessant.  The 
whistle  of  bullets,  the  roar  of  bursting  shells,  etc.,  im- 
pinge upon  the  brain  incessantly, — giving  it  no  rest  or 
peace.  The  mind  is  in  a  constant  state  of  excitement. 
The  soldier  is  continually  on  the  lookout  for  the  enemy. 
There  may  be  momentary  pangs  of  fear  or  uncertainty, 
but  these  are  dispelled  by  the  feeling  of  proximity  of 
comrades,  and  in  proportion  to  the  familiarity  of  the 
environment.  Here,  as  ever,  "  familiarity  breeds  con- 
tempt." The  soldiers  soon  become  indifferent  to  the 
scream  of  shells  and  the  "whirr"  of  bullets — as  much 
as  they  do  to  the  sight  of  blood  or  of  dead  men  being 


52    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAE 

brought  in  on  stretchers.  When  the  moment  arrives 
for  the  men  to  advance  into  the  trenches, — to  the  firing- 
line, — authority  automatically  asserts  itself.  Silence 
and  discipline  are  at  once  observed  and  are  continually 
maintained.  The  soldiers  themselves  feel  the  neces- 
sity for  this.  As  death  becomes  nearer  and  more  real, 
the  feeling  of  self-preservation  becomes  stronger  and 
stronger;  the  soldier  feels  that  his  discipline  is  one  of 
the  surest  means  of  escaping  death.  Instinctively  this 
is  observed.  Thus,  on  one  occasion,  a  column  was 
marching  down  an  unfrequented  lane,  when  a  shell  ex- 
ploded quite  close  to  it.  The  column  paused  for  an 
instant,  as  if  in  surprise,  then  pushed  forward  again  in 
perfect  rhythm  and  order,  "with  the  gleam  of  hate  on 
their  faces."  The  individual  had  vanished — swal- 
lowed up  in  the  group.  Personal  psychology  had  given 
way  to  the  psychology  of  the  crowd — individual  to  col- 
lective consciousness. 

As  to  the  light  which  may  be  thrown  upon  the  psy- 
chology of  fear,  in  the  present  war,  there  is  fortunately 
little  to  say.  Men  assert  that  they  rarely  experience 
this  feeling — least  of  all  while  on  the  firing  line.  Some- 
times they  run  into  extreme  danger  at  night,  and  at 
dawn  are  astonished  at  having  escaped  almost  certain 
death.  Then,  sometimes,  a  shiver  of  reminiscent  ap- 
prehension runs  through  them !  But  nearly  every  sol- 
dier feels  a  sort  of  inner  conviction  that  he  will  not  be 
killed — that  he  will  escape,  by  some  miraculous  good 
fortune !  Some,  it  is  true,  do  not  experience  this  feel- 
ing; but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  majority  do  experi- 
ence it. 

The  first  thing  which  the  men  do,  on  occupying  new 
advanced  trenches,  is  to  take  mental  and  moral  pos- 
session of  them,  no  less  than  physical  possession.  Al- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER     53 

most  invariably,  they  criticise  the  state  of  the  trenches 
they  occupy,  and  pass  uncomplimentary  remarks  about 
their  former  owners,  who  had  left  them  in  such  a  con- 
dition! (It  reminds  one  of  moving  into  a  new  house !) 
On  settling  in  the  trench,  each  soldier  places  his  knap- 
sack in  a  small  cut-out  hole  in  front  of  him,  places  his 
rifle  and  cartridges  ready  to  hand,  assures  himself  that 
the  parapet  directly  in  front  of  him  is  safe  and  in  good 
condition,  places  boards  or  pieces  of  wood  at  conven- 
ient angles,  so  that  he  may  stand  upon  them  (to  keep 
his  feet  dry),  and  takes  a  general  view  of  the  situa- 
tion, so  as  to  be  thoroughly  familiar  with  his  surround- 
ings. Of  course,  in  this  reconnaissance,  he  cannot  look 
over  the  top  of  the  trenches,  or  peep  at  the  enemy; 
if  he  did  he  would  be  shot  instantly  for  his  pains  by  the 
"snipers"  in  the  opposing  trenches.  Consequently,  a 
temporary  fear  of  the  unknown  sets  in,  which  is  dis- 
pelled as  soon  as  he  becomes  oriented  to  his  surround- 
ings, and  familiar  with  the  general  "lay  out"  of  his 
trenches.  As  time  'passes,  and  he  still  cannot  see  or 
hear  the  enemy  (whom  he  knows,  nevertheless,  to  be 
so  near),  an  overpowering  curiosity  takes  possession 
of  him.  He  wishes  to  look — to  have  "just  a  peep" — 
at  the  opposing  earthworks.  Some  are  foolhardy 
enough  to  do  this,  contrary  to  the  strict  commands  of 
the  officers, — and  many  a  man  has  been  killed  in  just 
this  way.  Others  content  themselves  with  testing  the 
proximity  of  the  enemy  by  displaying  caps,  helmets, 
etc.,  on  the  end  of  bayonets,  over  the  edge  of  the 
trenches, — and  usually  seeing  a  hole  shot  in  them  in- 
stantly !  Still  others  endeavour  to  observe  the  enemy- 
positions  by  the  aid  of  "trench-periscopes,"  but  these 
are  generally  shattered  by  the  enemy  rifle  fire.  (Their 
own  well-placed  snipers  are,  of  course,  doing  the  same 


54    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAK 

thing  in  the  case  of  the  enemy.)  But  the  majority  of 
the  men  try  to  conquer  this  all-pervading  curiosity* 
They  either  resist  the  temptation  until  it  is  their  turn 
to  observe  from  the  observation-post;  or,  failing  this, 
they  question  others  likely  to  know, — the  wounded,  the 
doctors,  the  incoming  snipers, — and  display,  as  one 
soldier  expressed  it,  "more  curiosity  than  a  woman " 
as  to  the  movements  and  disposition  of  the  enemy.  In 
these  trenches,  silence  is  often  the  rule;  the  men  are 
not  allowed  to  talk ;  but  this  rule  is  not  always  obeyed. 
Constant  alertness  is  essential.  If  the  men  talk,  it  is 
usually  about  immediate  and  relatively  inconsequen- 
tial things — the  country,  the  weather,  a  late  adven- 
ture, etc.  As  one  sergeant  said,  speaking  of  his  sol- 
diers: "Nothing  interests  them;  they  are  absorbed 
in  every  little  thing  which  comes  up."  They  live,  in. 
short,  in  the  senses, — which  are  trained  to  be  constant- 
ly on  the  alert.  If  a  gun  is  fired,  the  soldiers  follow  the 
course  of  the  shell  and  observe  the  volume  of  smoke  it 
throws  up ;  if  an  aeroplane  is  seen,  its  flight  is  watched 
with  bated  breath ;  the  men  count  the  number  of  bombs 
it  drops ;  the  number  of  shrapnel-shells  bursting  round 
it,  etc.  This  is  repeated,  no  matter  how  many  times 
a  day  the  same  event  takes  place.  The  men  even  re- 
peat the  same  words,  make  the  same  gestures,  etc.,  on 
each  occasion,  without  knowing  that  they  do  so.  They 
display  no  signs  of  uneasiness ;  on  the  contrary,  a  feel- 
ing of  absolute  assurance  seems  to  pervade  the 
trenches.  If  the  soldier  is  given  food  and  a  plentiful 
supply  of  tobacco,  he  gives  himself  up  to  the  sensuous 
life  completely,  and  henceforth  ceases  to  be  "a  think- 
ing animal.'* 

It  is  the  officer  upon  whom  falls  the  responsibility 
for  his  men ;  he  it  is  who  must  do  the  thinking  for  the 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      55 

entire  army.  The  men  look  to  him  for  everything. 
The  importance  of  having  trained  and  experienced 
officers  is  thus  very  apparent — men  whose  intellect  is 
of  high  order,  and  whose  mental  and  moral  forces  are 
at  their  highest  point  of  efficiency  at  the  opening  of 
hostilities. 

Occasionally,  in  slack  times,  the  men  engage  in  some 
occupation,  to  keep  themselves  employed;  but  these 
are  always  manual  occupations,  easily  performed  with 
the  hands.  Conversation  becomes  less  and  less  fre- 
quent as  the  days  go  by ;  and  when  it  does  occur,  it  is 
always  about  simple  things.  Living,  as  he  does,  in  a 
new  world,  in  constant  danger  of  immediate  death, 
the  soldier  feels  detached  from  other  men,  from  the 
world,  and  even  from  his  own  family.  He  begins  to 
feel  that,  after  all,  he  is  the  important  and  essential 
factor  in  the  community;  that  the  world  centres  about 
him  and  observes  his  actions.  This  feeling  is  not  con- 
sciously egotistical*  the  soldier  merely  feels  himself 
to  be  the  centre  of  interest.  Each  man  lives  only  for 
himself,  in  his  inner  thoughts, — his  own  interests,  as 
distinct  from  those  of  others.  He  feels  no  interests  in 
his  past  work  or  profession  or  its  future  possibilities. 
He  simply  cannot  think  of  it ;  he  now  lives  in  a  differ- 
ent world  entirely.  Letters  from  home,  and  journals, 
as  they  arrive,  afford  some  slight  mental  stir  and  com- 
motion, for  a  time;  but  even  these  seem  to  leave  no 
durable  trace  upon  the  mind,  and  their  images  and 
memories  are  soon  obliterated.  Thus,  a  young  cor- 
poral, in  trying  to  analyze  his  impressions  at  the  time, 
said: 

"I  am  not  sure  that  I  thought  of  my  family  par- 
ticularly, even  when  writing  home!  There  seemed 


56    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

somehow  to  be  a  veil  between  us,  shutting  off  all  com- 
munion of  feeling  and  interest." 

The  curious  form  of  fatalism  which  seems  to  take 
possession  of  the  soldiers  at  the  front  is  well  illus- 
trated by  the  following  letter  from  Lieutenant  New- 
hall,  of  the  American  Expeditionary  Army  in  France, 
written  to  his  father,  and  published  by  him  in  the  Min- 
neapolis Tribune.  He  says  in  part : — 

"Don't  be  unhappy,  even  if  something  happens  to 
me.  The  Japanese  point  of  view  always  appealed  to 
me.  They  are  proud  when  one  of  their  relatives  is 
lost  in  a  patriotic  struggle,  and  put  on  festival  clothes 
instead  of  going  into  mourning.  I  was  pleased  to  see 
it  suggested  in  the  Chicago  Tribune  that  we  adopt  the 
custom  of  wearing  a  badge,  such  as  a  star,  instead  of 
black. 

"When  we  think  of  the  bigness  of  the  work  at  hand 
— and  it  is  more  than  merely  defeating  Germany — any 
man  can  feel  that  even  being  killed  is  a  small  price  to 
pay  for  having  an  active  part  in  this  great  step  for- 
ward, which  the  world  is  taking. 

"It  is  the  welding  together  of  the  liberty-loving 
peoples  into  a  great  co-operating  society — which  is  to 
be  the  triumph  that  will  follow  an  Allied  victory. 

"The  great  weakness  of  our  democracies  has  been 
that  this  liberty  of  which  they  were  so  boastful  was  a 
mere  individualism  which  allowed  every  man  to  com- 
pete unscrupulously  with  all  his  neighbours.  Now  in 
the  face  of  this  German  menace  we  are  trying  to  learn 
how  to  curtail  some  of  our  individual  'liberties'  in  or- 
der to  secure  a  national  unity. 

"Germany  and  Japan  have  secured  the  spirit  of  co- 
operation through  the  action  of  autocracies.  It  is  now 
for  us  to  show  that  it  can  be  achieved  as  well  and  in 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      57 

less  dangerous  form  through  democracy.  Perhaps  it 
can't  be.  If  that  be  so,  it  is  better  to  be  killed  before 
that  impossibility  has  been  demonstrated.  If  it  can  be, 
then  any  one  who  contributes  toward  the  achievement 
of  that  end  can  be  proud  in  proportion  to  his  contribu- 
tion. Don't  be  anxious  then.  Be  happy  that  I  am  over 
here  as  I  am,  despite  the  mournful  tone  of  some  of  my 
letters." 

In  the  military  journals,  the  men  seek  to  find  encour- 
aging or  favourable  results ;  they  are  not  interested  in 
military  movements  and  manoeuvres,  as  such;  only  in 
the  results  actually  accomplished.  They  think  little  of 
war  in  the  abstract;  or  (curiously  enough)  of  the 
enemy.  They  think  rather  of  themselves.  They  do  not 
forget  the  enemy;  they  simply  do  not  think  of  him. 
(This,  of  course,  is  when  they  are  not  actively  engaged 
in  observing.)  All  the  men  questioned  agree  upon 
these  three  essential  points:  viz.,  (1)  That  they  do 
not  speak  of  the  enemy  or  think  of  him,  except  when 
an  alarm  is  given;  (2)  or  after  an  attack;  or  (3)  when 
the  patrols  return;  that  is,  each  time  his  presence  is 
vividly  recalled  to  consciousness.  At  such  times,  the 
same  acts  and  ideas  are  repeated  on  nearly  every  oc- 
casion. 

When  the  trenches  are  under  fire  from  the  enemy, 
the  mind  centres  upon  one  thing — how  to  defend  the 
trench  and  resist  the  adversary.  The  men  fire,  as  it 
were,  to  protect  themselves,  as  much  as  to  kill.  For 
this  reason  they  often  fire  badly, — especially  at  first. 
They  have  a  sort  of  subconscious  impression  that  this 
noise  will  terrify  the  enemy;  and  seek  to  add  to  this 
din  in  all  sorts  of  ways — by  cries,  shouts,  incessant 
firing,  etc.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that  all  this  does 


58    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

have  a  certain  mental  and  moral  effect  upon  the  enemy, 
in  nearly  all  cases. 

Says  Dr.  G.  W.  Crile:— 

''The  nearer  the  trenches,  the  more  desperate  and 
intense  is  the  fighting.  In  trench  fighting  both  sides 
have  adopted  every  variety  of  flame,  acid,  and  explo- 
sive that  ingenuity  can  devise.  Every  ruse,  every 
stratagem,  is  employed  in  the  close  personal  contact. 
It  is  as  if  one  were  contending  all  day  and  all  night 
with  a  murderer  in  one's  own  house. 

'  *  Under  these  conditions  the  personalities  of  the  men 
become  altered;  they  become  fatalists  and  think  no 
longer  of  their  personal  affairs,  their  friends,  or  their 
homes.  Their  intensified  attention  is  directed  solely 
to  their  hostile  vis-d-vis.  They  look  neither  to  the 
right,  to  the  left,  nor  behind.  The  gaze  of  each  is  fixed 
upon  the  end  of  the  hostile  gun,  which  may  hold  for 
him — his  future! 

' '  To  indicate  the  fierceness  of  the  struggle  in  the  Ar- 
gonne,  I  know  of  one  instance  in  which  an  officer  who 
had  been  wounded  on  the  'hell-strip,'  'No-Man's 
Land,'  that  red  lane  between  the  German  and  the 
French  advance  trenches,  lay  there  for  six  and  one- 
half  days,  then  died.  Neither  rescue  nor  capture  was 
permitted.  Flashlights  played  over  this  wounded  man 
at  night,  and  food  was  thrown  to  him  from  the  trenches 
by  day.  Dead  bodies  lie  on  this  strip  or  dangle  on 
barbed  wires  for  days  and  weeks  and  months.  .  .  . 

"In  the  first  impact  of  war  many  men  in  all  of  the 
armies  became  insane ;  many  underwent  nervous  break- 
down; some  became  hysterical;  but  the  great  majority 
became  seasoned  and  maintained  a  state  of  good 
health."  (A  Mechanistic  Conception  of  War  and 
Peace,  pp.  14-15.) 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      59 

Artillery  Fire 

In  contrast  to  the  vis-d-vis  trench  fighting  with  rifles 
and  hand  grenades  and  dynamite,  artillery  fire  is  more 
severe  when  only  concentrated,  and  the  concussive  ef- 
fect of  bursting  shells  brings  other  forms  of  injury. 
The  sudden  explosion  of  tEe  shell  shocks  the  ear,  fre- 
quently breaking  the  ear  drum ;  it  shakes  the  body,  and 
often  produces  a  molecular  change  in  nervous  tissue. 
The  rarefaction  and  condensation  of  the  air  cause  such 
violent  changes  in  the  gaseous  tension  in  the  blood  as 
to  rupture  blood  vessels  in  the  central  nervous  sys- 
tem— thereby  producing  an  injury  in  a  vital  part  and 
causing  sudden  death.  The  process  is  in  a  measure 
comparable  to  "caisson  disease"  or  "bends"  in  work- 
men labouring  under  atmospheric  pressure  in  tunnels 
under  water.  But  artillery  fire  is  less  personal  than 
the  rule  or  bayonet.  The  artilleryman  rarely  sees  the 
object  of  his  fire ;  be  has  no  personal  contact  with  the 
enemy,  but  suddenly  finds  himself  in  a  scorching  fire, 
from  a  source  which  he  cannot  ascertain,  from  an  en- 
emy he  cannot  see.  It  is  like  quarrelling  by  telegraph. 

Although  they  cannot  see  one  another,  the  men  fre- 
quently hurl  threats  back  and  forth, — between  the  op- 
posing trenches.  Thus,  the  French  soldiers  will  call 
out,  "Bring  your  Emperor  William  over  here!"  To 
which  the  German  soldiers  reply,  "A  Paris;  a  Paris!" 
The  French  call  back,  "You  will  never  get  to  Paris, 
you  Boches!"  The  idea  of  "Paris"  affects  soldiers 
from  all  parts  of  France  equally.  The  simple  word 
seems  to  have  an  effect  upon  them  which  is  paralleled 
by  none  other. 

In  the  trenches,  every  one  knows  every  one  else ;  and 
good  and  bad  rumours  soon  spread.  The  men  are  fond 


60 

of  music,  but  are  not  particular;  and  while  the  Mar- 
seillaise stirs  the  French,  they  have  been  known  to  ad- 
vance with  patriotic  fervour  to  some  popular  music- 
hall  song,  such  as  "Embrasse-moi,  Ninette!" 

In  the  Isolated  Trenches. — In  these  advanced  posi- 
tions the  men  seem  to  form  a  more  united  and  homo- 
geneous group.  They  are  swayed  more  readily  by 
one  impulse,  by  a  single  word,  or  gesture.  The  ex- 
ample of  the  commanding  officer  here  is  of  the  suprem- 
est  importance.  In  these  trenches,  the  men  do  not 
know  what  is  going  on  to  the  right  or  the  left  of  them, 
in  front  or  to  the  rear.  They  might  be  utterly  aban- 
doned by  the  rest  of  the  army,  for  all  they  know.  This 
thought — they  have  been  abandoned — is  apt  to  cause 
temporary  demoralization  in  soldiers  newly  arrived  at 
the  front  who  enter  these  positions  for  the  first  time. 
M.  Lahy  points  out  the  importance  of  keeping  the  sol- 
diers in  these  trenches  in  touch  with  the  rest  of  the 
army,  and  particularly  with  their  near-by  comrades. 
At  the  moment  of  attack  this  is  especially  essential. 
At  such  times,  M.  Lahy  insists,  the  soldier  should  know 
what  support  he  is  having,  and  the  object  of  his  attack. 
Were  this  support  given  him,  his  morale  would  be 
greatly  heightened. 


CHAPTEE  IV 

THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   SOLDIER    (Continued) 

During  the  Attack;  Pain;  Shell-Shock;  Dreams; 
Fatigue,  etc. 

THE  ASSAULT 

A  sudden  thrill — 

"Fix  bayonets!" 

Gods!  we  have  our  fill 

Of  fear,  hysteria,  exultation,  rage, 

Rage  to  kill. 

My  heart  burns  hot,  whiter  and  whiter, 

Contracts  tighter  and  tighter, 

Until  I  stifle  with  the  will 

Long  forged,  now  used 

(Tho  utterly  strained)  — 

0  pounding  heart, 

Baffled,  confused, 

Heart  panged,  head  singing,  dizzily  painetf— 

To  do  my  part. 

Blindness  a  moment.    Sick. 
There  the  men  are! 
Bayonets  ready:  click! 
Time  goes  quick; 

A  stumbled  prayer  .  .  .  somehow  a  blazing  star 
In  a  blue  night  .  .  .  where? 
Again  prayer. 
The  tongue  trips.     Start: 

How's  time?     Soon  now.    Two  minutes  or  less. 
The  gun's  fury  mounting  higher  .  .  . 
Their  utmost.    I  lift  a  silent  hand.    Unseen  I  bless. 
61 


62    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

Those  hearts  will  follow  me. 

And  beautifully, 

Now  beautifully  my  will  grips. 

Soul  calm  and  round  and  filmed  and  white! 

ROBERT  NICHOLS. 

THE  ATTACK. — Of  all  the  events  of  the  war,  it  is  this 
which  persists  most  strongly  in  the  mind  of  the  sol- 
dier. The  impressions  are  the  most  vivid,  and  doubt- 
less the  traces  are  most  deeply  imprinted  upon  the  ner- 
vous system, — hence  the  depth  of  the  impressions.  At 
such  times,  the  soldiers  seem  to  be  sustained  and  in- 
spired by  lofty  but  purely  subconscious  feelings  and 
impressions — country,  family,  God,  all  are  there  in 
spirit,  and  form  a  background  of  superior  emotions 
and  feelings; — none  of  which,  however,  are  sensed  con- 
sciously. If  a  soldier  who  has  actually  taken  part  in 
an  attack  be  questioned  as  to  his  state  of  mind  at  the 
time,  he  invariably  replies  that  he  was  not  conscious 
of  any  images  or  impressions  outside  those  which  had 
reference  to  the  immediate  object  of  the  offensive — no 
matter  what  the  duration  of  the  struggle  may  have 
been.  The  mind  remains  attached  to  the  sole  image  or 
impression  of  the  possible  ''mortal  shock," — and  the 
means  of  escaping  it !  In  other  words,  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation  has  assumed  supreme  sway.  The 
following  case  will  give  an  example  of  this: — 

A  young  sergeant  (who  in  consequence  was  later 
made  an  adjutant)  was  sent  to  observe  a  German 
trench.  He  advanced  confidently  to  within  about  ten 
metres  of  it  (at  night)  when  he  was  suddenly  subject- 
ed to  a  terrific  rain  of  bullets.  He  had  been  discov- 
ered !  Surprised,  and  suddenly  seized  with  uncontrol- 
lable terror,  he  rushed  back  to  the  French  trenches, 
but,  owing  to  the  storm  of  fire,  dared  not  climb  over 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER     68 

the  parapet.  For  three  hours  he  was  obliged  to  lie 
flat  on  the  ground,  crouched  and  flattened  against  the 
projecting  earthwork.  During  all  tJiat  time,  when  he 
expected  death  every  minute,  he  thought  neither  of  his 
family,  his  friends,  of  God,  duty,  nor  patriotism, — but 
only  of  how  to  escape  death  (yet  he  was  naturally  a  re- 
ligious man,  and  devoted  to  his  family).  His  reason 
never  deserted  him  for  one  instant;  he  spoke  to  his 
comrades  constantly  on  the  other  side  of  the  trench, 
and  received  encouragement  and  consolation  from 
them.  But  his  mind  clung  to  the  one  thought — how  to 
escape  and  attain  shelter!  This  instructive  incident 
shows  us  the  extremely  primitive  state  of  mind 
reached  by  the  soldier  on  the  battlefield,  and  should 
serve  to  dispel  many  sentimental  illusions  as  to  the 
4 'agony  of  soul"  from  which  the  soldier  on  the  battle- 
field is  supposed  to  suffer! 

A  critic  might  object,  here,  that  such  a  case  is  excep- 
tional ;  or  that  this  man  may  have  suffered  from  an  il- 
lusion of  memory, — and  really  thought  of  many  more 
things  than  he  thought  he  did.  However,  practically 
every  soldier  tells  the  same  story ;  and  if  they  think  of 
anything  else,  these  thoughts  do  not  rise  into  the 
conscious  mind  with  sufficient  strength  to  be  recog- 
nized. Such  a  state  of  mind  as  that  noticed  is  char- 
acterized by  its  unity, — by  its  fixed  limits, — in  which 
one  image,  and  one  only,  fills  the  mind.  This  is  tech- 
nically termed  a  state  of  " monoideism."  In  such  a 
state  thought  seems  to  follow  the  bodily  action  instead 
of  vice  versa.  It  is  the  body  which  has  become  su- 
preme; and  the  mind  a  mere  ' '  epiphenomenon. " 

Just  prior  to  the  attack,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
mind  reaches  a  certain  state  of  tension,  which  finds  its 
only  avenue  of  expression  in  bodily  activity.  Thought 


64    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

must  find  relief  in  action !  Thus,  one  soldier  who  had 
risen  above  the  trench  and  become  a  mark  for  the 
enemy,  experienced  what  he  called  a  brief  "lucid  in- 
terval," followed  by  an  overwhelming  desire  to  leap 
over  the  parapet  and  attack  the  enemy!  Just  before 
an  attack,  the  officers  frequently  have  to  calm  the  men, 
restrain  them,  to  keep  them  in  check.  At  the  moment 
of  the  attack,  the  soldier  thinks  nothing  but,  "We  must 
go,  we  must  go — now,  we  go!"  As  they  climb  over 
the  parapet,  their  only  thought  is  to  get  at  the  enemy 
as  quickly  as  possible — not  so  much  with  the  object  of 
killing  him,  strange  to  say,  as  from  the  desire  of  saving 
their  own  skins.  They  sweep  across  the  fire-swept 
ground,  thinking  only  of  taking  cover,  if  any  offers 
itself,  or  of  reaching  the  enemy  as  quickly  as  possible. 
In  a  bayonet  attack  a  man  becomes  for  the  time  being 
a  "beast-brute."  All  his  higher  feelings  and  instincts 
are  in  abeyance.  He  becomes  simply  an  instinctive 
animal,  bent  on  preserving  his  own  life,  by  killing  as 
many  of  the  enemy  as  possible.  At  such  times  the 
crisis  of  excitement  runs  high;  the  men  cry  out,  they 
shout,  they  brandish  their  arms.  When  the  action  is 
keen,  the  feelings  of  the  different  parts  of  the  body 
seem  to  become  diffused;  they  become  unified  only  in 
the  brain.  One  idea,  and  one  only,  floods  the  conscious- 
ness and  the  whole  being  of  the  soldier ;  self-preserva- 
tion. This  sweep  of  a  single  state  of  consciousness 
over  the  entire  being  of  the  attacking  soldier  is  ren- 
dered easier  by  reason  of  the  previous  empty  mental 
life  which  he  has  led  in  the  cantonments  and  trenches. 
There  the  soldier  has  become  so  used  to  being  monop- 
olized by  a  single  idea  that  it  takes  place  quite  nat- 
urally, and  without  the  internal  resistance  which  would 
be  exercised  by  a  man  "new  at  the  game."  As  this 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      65 

feeling  surges  through  him,  he  also  feels  that  he  mas- 
ters danger ;  in  the  same  way  that  an  expert  feels  the 
master  of  some  sport  in  which  he  has  excelled.  And 
as  he  experiences  this,  the  feeling  of  danger  vanishes. 
The  following  interesting  letter  will  give  a  vivid 
account  of  the  psychology  of  the  American  soldier; 
and  is  one  of  the  first  received  in  this  country  which 
actually  does  so.  It  appeared  in  the  evening  edition 
of  the  New  York  Sun,  February  27,  1918,  and  is  as 
follows : — 

WON  MEDAL  ON  FIRST  TRIP  OVER  THE  TOP 

Corporal  Hal  B.  Donnelly,  Company  B,  Fifth  Cana- 
dian Mounted  Rifles  Battalion,  is  from  Asbury  Park, 
N.  J.  He  enlisted  with  the  Canadians  in  1916  in  time 
to  take  part  in  the  Somme  action,  of  which  this  letter 
is  a  partial  narrative.  He  won  the  Military  Medal  for 
bravery  in  this  fight,*  but  on  this  subject  the  letter  is 
modestly  silent. 

"DEAR  MOTHER:  I  guess  you  get  tired  of  my  short 
uninteresting  letters,  and  so  I  am  going  to  relate  my 
first  ideas  and  impressions  when  I  arrived  in  France 
and  thus  relieve  the  monotony  of  my  short  notes,  'I 
am  well,'  etc. 

"Now  when  a  man  first  comes  to  this  country  to 
fight  the  wily  Hun  he  is  not  thrown  immediately  into 
the  fray,  but  by  gradual  processes  he  makes  his  way 
from  the  'base'  to  the  trenches.  In  that  period  he  goes 
through  intensive  training  at  the  'base';  then  some 
more  behind  the  line,  where  he  becomes  accustomed  to 
the  artillery,  and  by  contact  with  'old  timers'  he  learns 
the  meaning  of  the  various  terms  applied  to  shells, 
trenches,  attacks,  and  picks  up  many  hints  on  trench 


66    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

conduct.  If  the  man  is  of  the  right  sort  he  learns  a 
great  deal  not  taught  in  training  camps.  Then,  per- 
haps, he  goes  up  close  behind  the  line  some  night  on  a 
working  party  and  gets  his  first  view  of  star  shells. 
He  learns  the  difference  between  one  of  ours  going  over 
and  one  of  the  Hun's  coming  our  way  (shells,  I  mean). 

"He  gets  wised  up;  also  the  first  few  times  he  gets 
his  'wind  up';  but  getting  used  to  it  all  he  gradually 
learns  that  all  shells  are  not  aimed  at  him.  Then 
finally  he  goes  to  the  battalion  and  into  the  front  line, 
where  he  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  most  of  the  men 
who  write  in  the  papers  and  numerous  others  who 
trained  him  are  the  biggest  liars  on  earth.  But  a  day 
eventually  comes  when  all  of  the  horrors,  all  of  the 
misery,  the  injustice  and  the  terrors  come  home  to  him, 
and  he  realizes  that  there  was  to  a  certain  extent 
method  in  his  training. 

"My  case  was  a  little  different  from  the  one  I  just 
outlined.  I  came  over  from  the  States  to  Canada  and 
made  a  few  inquiries;  found  out  a  battalion  that  was 
to  depart  for  England  right  away.  I  did  not  fancy  too 
much  training,  but  was  like  the  'Scotty'  who  wanted 
to  enlist.  He  said  to  the  officer,  'Gie  me  a  horse  and 
let  me  awa '  to  the  trenches. ' 

"I  just  happened  to  get  to  England  shortly  after  a 
certain  famous  battle  in  which  they  lost  heavily  and 
were  in  sore  need  of  men  to  fill  up  the  ranks  of  those 
battalions  which  bore  the  brunt  of  it  all,  so  my  stay  in 
England  was  short.  I  did  the  usual  rifle  range,  where 
I  made  a  fairly  good  score — and  bingo !  I  shipped  to 
France. 

"It  would  surprise  you,  how  anxious  these  Cana- 
dians are  *  to  go  to  it. '  I  was  the  same ;  I  wanted  to  get 
into  it  and  have  done  with  my  conjectures  as  to  what 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      67 

it  was  like.  But  I  had  to  go  through  some  very  inten- 
sive training  before  departing  for  the  line.  Bayonet 
practice  and  trench  digging,  barb  wire  and  musketry 
practice,  jumping  trenches  and  wire,  lectures — and 
presto!  I  was  bloodthirsty;  I  wanted  to  pin  a  Hun  on 
my  trusty  bayonet. 

* '  Oh,  I  sure  had  my  wind  up  when  we  were  lectured 
by  a  man  who  knew  the  methods  used  by  Fritz,  and  , 
since  then,  although  I  have  ceased  to  be  bloodthirsty, 
deep  down  in  me  rankles  a  hatred  for  all  things  Ger- 
man. We  find  out  by  actual  experience  that  the  atroci- 
ties we  were  told  of  are  actual  facts. 

"The  President  says  we  are  not  fighting  the  Ger- 
mans but  Prussianism.  But  if  he  had  seen  what  I  have 
Ije  would  class  all  Huns  as  Huns  and  fight  them  tooth 
and  nail.  No,  they  are  the  same,  collectively  and  indi- 
vidually— though  no  doubt  they  are  the  product  of  what 
they  have  been  taught  through  a  number  of  genera- 
tions. But  we  take  them  as  we  find  them,  and  if  possi- 
ble leave  them  so  that  they  will  never  do  any  more 
harm.  When  we  shall  have  won  this  war  we  will  prove 
to  the  Hun  conclusively  that  his  teaching  was  all 
wrong.  After  that,  perhaps  in  two  or  three  genera- 
tions, he  may  develop  into  a  rational,  peace  loving, 
little  Hun. 

"But  to  continue  about  myself.  I  was  bloodthirsty.  I 
bought  a  file  to  sharpen  my  bayonet  (which  is  strictly 
against  the  Hague  convention,  but  is  according  to  Hun 
interpretation  of  it).  I  purchased  a  beautiful  bit  of 
steel  for  a  puttee  knife;  this  instrument  is  carried  in 
the  puttee,  and  in  case  you  lose  your  rifle  in  an  en- 
counter or  come  to  grips  you  slash  or  perhaps  dig,  and 
then  convince  the  Hun  that  there  is  a  'war  on.'  This 
knife  I  used  to  finger  with  loving  pride;  it  was  very 


68    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

sharp.  I  was  there  all  right,  but  I  found  later  that  I 
was  not  half  as  ferocious  as  I  thought  at  the  time. 
I  finally  reached  my  objective  'up  the  line/  but  did  not 
immediately  go  to  trenches,  but  was  with  a  reserve 
battalion  doing  working  parties.  I  soon  picked  up  the 
meaning  of  the  many  strange  noises  in  the  back  areas ; 
I  could  differentiate  between  one  of  our  guns  firing 
and  a  Hun  crump  landing.  I  could  soon  tell  one  of  our 
planes  from  Fritzie's;  I  also  learned  that  souvenir 
collecting  was  dangerous,  because  sometimes  an  old 
grenade  or  'nose  cap'  still  had  a  sting. 

"I  was  a  month  doing  working  parties,  mostly  at 
night  to  the  time  of  machine  gun  bullets  and  there  were 
shots  on  the  road  going  and  coming  which  were  quite 
hot  at  times.  But  I  had  not  reached  the  line.  Gee! 
How  I  admired  those  mud  stained  troops  coming  out 
and  those  others  going  in!  They  were  actually  in  it 
and  how  I  would  hold  my  tongue  and  listen  when  they 
would  speak  of  bays,  and  traverse,  rumjars,  minnie- 
wurf  ers,  listening  posts  and  stand-to !  These  men  had 
actually  seen  life ;  they  were  veterans  and  how  wonder- 
ful that  they  could  'go  in'  and  come  out.  Why,  some 
of  them  had  been  in  France  a  year.  I  thought  a  man 
was  lucky  if  he  did  not  get  napooed  first  trip  in. 

"Then  my  ideas  began  to  change.  I  saw  fellows  who 
had  nerve  to  write  home  for  things  that  would  not 
come  for  over  two  months  and  they  would  in  that  time 
make  several  trips  to  the  line.  Gee !  I  thought,  what  a 
splendid  lot  of  optimists.  I  was  learning  and  what  I 
learned  from  these  'old  timers'  was  of  great  value  to 
me  later  when  I  became  a  'dweller  in  trenches.' 

' '  I  will  write  a  little  conversation  I  heard ;  the  lesson 
it  taught  is  obvious. 

"  'Hey,  Bill,  where 's  Charles  1' 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER   69 

"  'Napoo.7 

"  'What?' 

"  'Yes.  He  was  out  on  a  listening  post  and  lit  a 
cigarette.  Sniper  got  him. ' 

"  'Damn  fool!' 

' '  '  Remember  Jim  T !  Well,  he  got  his  last  trip ; 

kept  bobbing  his  head  over  the  parapet.  If  he  had  only 
taken  a  look  in  a  slow,  easy  manner  he  would  be  alright 
today. ' 

"  'Yes.    That's  how  old  Bill  got  his.    Ain't  it!' 

"  'Yep.' 

' '  '  Say,  you  know  that  place  at  B.  B.  Corner,  where 
Fritz  played  his  machine  guns?' 

"  'Sure.' 

"  'Well,  he's  ranged  about  knee  high  and  got  quite 
a  number  of  our  lads  in  the  leg.  Dandy  blighties,  but 
one  fellow,  he  got  scared  and  tried  to  crawl  across. 
Yep,  he's  napoo  now.  Too  bad.' 

"I  learned  right  here  that  smoking  on  post  fur- 
nished too  good  a  target;  that  I  could  look  over  a 
parapet  if  I  gradually  raised  myself  and  remained 
stationary,  then  slowly  withdrew  my  head ;  that  it  was 
better  to  keep  on  my  legs  when  M.  G.  bullets 
(M.  G. — machine  gun)  were  kicking  up  the  dust.  And 
so  it  went;  a  hint  here  and  a  warning  there.  I  filed 
them  away  for  future  reference. 

"But  to  carry  on  with  the  war:  the  day  finally  came 
when  I  was  to  be  one  of  these  men  myself,  and  not  only 
that,  but  we  were  going  over  the  top  in  the  morning. 
Never  to  be  forgotten  night  before !  I  was  detailed  to 
get  this,  and  when  I  got  back  I  headed  off  again  for 
something  else. 

' '  I  was  loaded  down  like  a  dromedary ;  I  looked  like 
a  Christmas  tree  all  hung.  Rifle,  bayonet  (keen 


70    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

«dged),  grenades,  a  pick  and  shovel,  umpty  rounds 
ammunition,  two  packs  of  rations.  All  dressed  up  and 
nowhere  to  go !  And  as  luck  would  have  it  we  got  lost 
and  prowled  around  half  the  night  looking  for  our 
.sector  of  trenches.  We  finally  hit  the  front  line  and 
had  to  go  along  it  for  quite  a  distance.  We  had  been 
shelled  considerably  in  the  communication  trenches 
land  had  a  number  of  casualties.  This  was  war ;  I  was 
finally  in  it.  I  cannot  say  that  I  was  not  excited,  but 
I  don't  think  I  was  afraid;  only  sort  of  apprehensive. 
Thank  God!  it  was  night,  and  I  overlooked  a  great 
many  horrors;  those  patches  of  black  here  and  there 
on  parapet  and  paradore,  I  learned  what  they  were 
later. 

"  'Please  step  high  and  over  here.    Thanks.' 

' '  *  What 's  matter  I    Wounded  ? ' 

"  'No.    My  pal  is  dying.' 

"A  little  further  on  a  fellow  lying  on  his  back  and 
looking  straight  up — and  many  such.  Something 
seemed  to  grip  me ;  I  wanted  to  run,  but  those  fellows 
ahead  of  me  were  cool  enough;  they  were  not  afraid. 
Then  we  reached  the  'jump  over  trench.'  Our  bat- 
talion is  scheduled  to  start  at  6 :30  A.  M. 

"We  were  to  have  a  barrage.  Now  I  know  all  about 
a  barrage,  but  had  never  seen  one  in  action.  Every- 
thing was  quiet  after  3  A.  M. ;  not  a  shot  was  fired. 
Fritz  was  sending  up  lots  of  star  shells,  but  that's  his 
way.  Six-fifteen,  6:25,  6:30.  My  God !  all  hell  turned 
loose ;  my  heart  lost  several  beats  and  then  caught  up 
and  overdid  itself.  Some  one  shouted  'Let's  at  them!' 

"Oh,  it  was  a  dandy  barrage,  and  we  walked  over 
behind  it  without  much  opposition  and  took  our  ob- 
jective. I  threw  my  grenades  at  a  couple  of  Huns  in  a 
bay  and  when  they  exploded  (both  Huns  and  grenades) 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      71 

I  slid  into  a  trench  and,  according  to  plan,  rebuilt  the 
firing  step.  I  prepared  myself  in  case  of  counter  at- 
tack. I  did  not  get  a  chance  to  use  my  lovely  bayonet. 
Fact  is,  I  have  never  had  a  rifle  from  that  day  to  this, 
but  came  near  using  my  knife,  and  then  finally  used  it 
many  times.  You  see  as  a  stretcher  bearer  I  found 
that  long,  keen  blade  far  more  suitable  for  cutting 
away  clothing  than  a  pair  of  shears.  And  I  found  out 
I  had  been  kidding  myself  when  I  thought  I  was  of  the 
ferocious,  bloodthirsty  breed.  Oh,  a  fellow  sure  gets 
acquainted  with  himself  over  here. 

"Well,  anyhow  we  lost  three  of  our  first  aid  men 
going  over  and  the  fourth  was  put  out  of  action  an 
hour  afterward  when  Fritz  started  'strafing'  us.  The 
sergeant-major  asked  for  volunteers,  and  I  ceased  to 
be  counted  as  a  fighting  man.  Well,  I  answered  the 
call  all  that  day  and  not  only  dressed  men  but  with 
another  fellow  carried  them  out  to  a  sheltered  spot 
in  a  sunken  road.  About  4  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
an  officer  came  to  me  and  said : '  There 's  a  Hun  lying  in 
the  trench  up  a  ways.  Will  you  get  him  out!' 

"Then  I  got  tough.  'Yes,  I  will  get  him  out.  I'll 
slit  his  throat.'  And  I  drew  my  big  knife,  already 
blood-stained.  'Yes,  I'll  get  him  out.' 

"I  went  up  to  the  Hun — a  big  blue-eyed  Saxon.  He 
looked  up  at  me  and  said:  'Wilst  du  ich  ous  mocht?' 
(Will  you  get  me  out?)  One  look  at  the  poor  devil  and 
I  dressed  his  wounds  and  carried  him  the  first  lap  on 
his  journey  to  the  hospital. 

"And  thus  died  the  last  spark  of  frightfulness  that 
was  in  me.  I  was  not  made  of  the  same  stuff  the  Hun 
was.  A  Hun  will  show  no  mercy  to  either  an  unarmed 
or  wounded  man.  I  know  this  to  be  the  truth. 

"I  have  been  a  stretcher  bearer  ever  since  and  al- 


72    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAB 

ways  take  good  care  of  wounded,  only  ours  come  first; 
Fritz  must  wail  And  so  I  learned  what  I  was  made 
of,  and  with  two  exceptions  I  have  endeavoured  to  save 
life  rather  than  to  take  it  away. 

"We  were  relieved  after  two  days  and  proudly 
inarched  out  with  our  trophies;  helmets,  bayonets, 
water  bottles,  and  other  souvenirs  of  our  successful 
trip.  I  did  not  have  to  wonder  what  it  was  like  or  how 
I  would  act  under  fire.  I  knew,  and  the  wonderful 
thing  was  that  I  lived  through  it.  I  expected  as  thou- 
sands do  that  I  would  get  mine  first  trip  over. 

"Now,  mother  dear,  this  is  a  long  letter  from  your 
one  and  only  son.  It  is  all  ancient  history  now,  but  I 
have  never  written  to  you  before  of  this  and  I  thought 
you  would  be  interested  in  my  transformation — or  was 
it  that  I  was  mesmeriied  for  a  short  period!  But, 
honest,  I  did  think  I  was  going  to  be  some  guy  with  my 
keen  edged  tools.  Such  is  life. 

"Love  to  you  and  apologies  for  length  to  censor." 

An  unusually  gripping  description  of  the  soldier's 
mind,  in  battle,  is  given  by  a  young  lieutenant  on  the 
French  front  in  an  article  entitled,  "The  Soul  of  a 
Combatant,*'  printed  in  La  RCVHC  Frmtco-Macedo- 
tttemte,  one  of  the  trench  newspapers.  He  writes: 

"How  are  we  to  describe  the  soul  of  the  combatants 
during  the  attack,  in  the  battle  t  The  minutes  are  so 
intense,  the  pre-occupation  of  the  aim  to  attain  so  ab- 
sorbing that  even  the  man  most  inclined  to  self- 
analysis  abandons  all  thought  for  action.  The  atmos- 
phere is  so  exceptional  that  even  immediately  after 
some  difficult  phases  one  does  not  recover  his  aouL 

"There  is  first  a  period  of  preparation:  building  of 
trenches  and  shelters,  of  ammunition  stores  and  posts 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      73 

for  the  command;  the  men  work  day  and  night.  The 
pre-occupations  about  comfort  become  attenuated ;  out 
of  the  enormous  efforts,  results  of  which  we  see  daily, 
confidence  is  born;  a  kind  of  cheerfulness,  vague,  not 
much  talked  about — the  instinct  of  a  bee  in  a  hive,  the 
sentiment  of  complete  solidarity,  the  joy  of  being 
artisans  of  a  formidable  work  which  shall  be  perfect 
only  if  every  one  gives  all  his  strength,  all  his  life. 
The  acceptance  of  the  sacrifice  insinuates,  then  im- 
poses itself  on  all. 

"1  shall  perhaps  never  see  again  such  a  prodigious 
moral  spectacle  as  the  one  given  by  our  bivouacs  dur- 
ing the  three  days  preceding  the  attack  of  Septem- 
ber 25. 

'  •  In  the  orders  given  since  long  weeks  the  mysterious 
day  of  the  attack  was  designated  by  the  letter  N.  On 
September  22  we  learned  suddenly  that  this  was  the 
day,  X-3.  Everybody  prepared  himself.  Letters  to 
the  loved  ones,  letters  of  business  and  different  inter- 
rilled  the  bags  of  the  postmen." 

Weapons  were  carefully  oiled,  the  big  guns  pre- 
pared, the  men  affecting  unconcern  and  laughing 
loudly  at  the  slightest  provocation.  The  artillery  of 
the  enemy  thundered  loudly.  And  then : 

"AYhen.  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the  24th,  we 
started  forward  toward  the  furnace,  we  left  behind  in 
the  bivouacs,  with  the  ashes  of  the  letters  burned  be- 
fore our  departure,  our  old  soul,  made  of  troubles, 
hope,  fear,  and  love,  and  we  put  on  at  the  same  time 
as  our  equipment  our  soul  of  combat. 

"From  that  moment  we  live  only  in  the  present. 
The  probability  of  death  eclipses  the  past  and  forbids 
the  future.  Such  a  state,  lasting  days  and  days,  would 
be  inconceivable  and  also  unbearable  if  the  circum- 


74    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

stances  did  not  make  it  easier  by  lessening  greatly  the 
sensibility. 

11  First,  there  is  the  noise.  Then  after  the  noise  the 
fatigue  which  breaks  our  limbs,  the  hunger,  the  thirst, 
the  want  of  warm  food  which  provokes  a  kind  of  con- 
traction of  the  stomach,  really  painful.  But  above  all, 
that  which  enables  a  man  to  remain  in  the  fight  with- 
out being  demoralized  by  the  losses,  by  certain  sights, 
is  sleep;  in  the  first  hours  there  is  no  rest,  and  an 
immense  expense  of  physical  and  especially  moral 
strength ;  then,  after  a  certain  time,  all  disappears  be- 
fore an  irresistible  need  of  sleep.  Every  minute  of 
quiet,  under  the  rain,  in  a  hole,  in  an  open  field,  under 
a  violent  bombardment,  we  lie  down  and  sleep !  Don't 
think  it  is  a  painful  sleep ;  it  is  delicious.  As  soon  as 
you  allow  your  nerves  to  relax  a  soft  warmth  pene- 
trates you,  flows  in  your  veins ;  you  squat  in  your  ditch 
with  little  childish  gestures,  and  right  away,  in  a  sec- 
ond, like  a  stone  in  a  pit,  you  fall  in  the  most  profound, 
the  most  blissful  sleep." 

With  the  waking  the  dream  continues,  and  here,  ac- 
cording to  the  lieutenant,  the  strange  psychological 
experience  begins  when  one  seems  to  witness,  as  an- 
other individuality,  the  acts  of  oneself.  Says  the 
writer : 

* '  There  is  a  kind  of  duality  in  you — the  physical  per- 
son who  creeps,  falls  in  the  mud,  lies  down  under  the 
fire  of  the  mitrailleuses,  sneaks  from  one  tree  to  an- 
other, and  the  moral  person  who  observes  these 
strange  proceedings,  orders  them,  and  enjoys  an  aston- 
ishing lucidness. 

1 '  Dream  and  lucidness  here  are  the  two  words  which 
seem  to  me  to  express  best  the  soul  of  the  combatant. 

"  Dream,  this  small  wood,  chopped  by  the  fire  and 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      75 

through  which,  in  a  hellish  noise,  pale  men  glide,  creep- 
ing on  their  knees  and  elbows. 

"  Dream,  this  continual  bombardment,  which  shakes 
the  ground,  crushes  men  and  throws  others  on  the 
earth,  their  faces  down. 

"And  in  that  dream  what  clearness  of  thought!  This 
you  must  do,  just  this  and  nothing  else.  No  hesitation. 
Responsibility,  far  from  hindering  the  officer,  sustains 
him,  raises  him  up;  what  could  he  fear,  when  he  is 
surrounded  by  his  poilus,  ready  to  act  without  hesita- 
tion on  a  gesture,  on  a  word?  What  tenderness  he 
feels  for  these  men  of  all  ages  whom  he  calls  "my 
children,"  unforgetable  minutes  which  create  between 
all  a  total  and  definitive  solidarity! 

"One  idea  alone  haunts  the  brain,  where  it  tinkles 
like  a  bell.  'You  must  advance!  You  must  advance!' 
It  imposes  itself  not  as  a  duty,  but  as  an  evidence.  And 
we  advance,  and  we,  fall.  The  goal  is  that  tree  over 
there,  or  that  lump  of  earth.  I  do  not  see  anything 
beyond ;  I  must  reach  it,  and  nothing,  nothing,  nothing 
shall  keep  me  away  from  that  tree  or  that  lump ! 

"All  fighting  has  an  end;  at  night  it  calms  down; 
silence  and  shadow  shroud  and  still  everything.  The 
wounded,  the  dead  are  taken  up;  on  the  conquered 
ground,  guarded  by  a  few  sentinels,  every  one  sleeps 
—a  sleep  without  dream ;  the  soldiers  have  the  immo- 
bility of  corpses.  Sleep,  and  sleep  well;  the  task  has 
been  accomplished.  One  thought  to  the  fallen  com- 
rade, then  the  total  oblivion  of  sleep ! 

"After  the  offensive  we  come  back  to  the  hospital 
trenches;  we  wake  up  again  to  the  normal  life,  to  all 
the  small  preoccupations  of  old.  The  days  of  fever 
and  fight  are  already  far  away;  all  the  details  are 
minutely  engraved  in  our  minds,  but  our  soul  still  wan- 


76    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

ders;  we  can't  recover  it.    A  kind  of  depression  sub- 
sists after  the  return  to  the  physical  plenitude." 

Pushing  our  analysis  of  the  soldier's  internal  life  a 
little  deeper,  we  perceive,  perhaps,  the  true  nature  of 
heroism.  In  some  cases,  to  be  sure,  it  may  be  con- 
scious valour;  but  in  the  majority  of  cases  it  is  almost 
certainly  not  so.  The  man  who  performs  some  heroic 
feat  is  unaware  at  the  time  that  he  is  doing  anything 
extraordinarily  brave.  Certain  psychical  elements 
have  found  themselves  so  stimulated  by  action,  after 
the  continued  inaction,  that  the  feat  is  performed  al- 
most without  knowledge;  the  man  is  carried  out  of 
himself  by  the  very  excess  of  his  vitality.  And  this 
effect  is  still  further  heightened  by  the  psychology  of 
the  crowd — of  joint  action.  "When  we  all  advance, 
no  one  is  afraid,"  a  soldier  once  said.  There  may  be 
the  passing  thought,  "Am  I  going  to  be  killed?"  but 
he  advances  without  fear,  none  the  less. 

Courage  is  resistance  to  the  natural  fear  of  danger. 
It  is  compounded  of  various  elements  which  make  up 
a  complex  whole  that  appears  under  different  aspects. 
It  may  be  accidental,  and  in  that  case  is  comparatively 
easy  to  practise;  but  when  it  assumes  a  continuous 
form  it  is  a  more  difficult  matter,  except  when  habit 
makes  it  almost  unconscious. 

The  European  War  gives  us  the  opportunity  of 
making  a  great  many  very  interesting  psychological 
reflections  on  the  subject  of  courage,  for  the  observa- 
tions recorded  on  the  various  battlefields  are  most  in- 
structive. Among  the  letters  which  I  have  received 
from  the  Front,  I  have  selected  the  following  one, 

written  by  M.  de  B -,  the  artillery  officer  whom  I 

have  already  quoted: — 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      77 

"With  regard  to  gallantry  the  war  has  made  me 
distinguish  a  whole  great  gamut  of  qualities  which  I 
had  before  lumped  together  in  more  or  less  confusion. 

"In  the  first  place  I  have  come  to  realize  the  truth 
of  the  Spanish  expression  which  says  of  a  man,  'He 
was  brave  on  such  and  such  a  day.' 

"The  most  admirable  quality  in  gallantry  is  that 
which  impels  a  man  to  leave  a  place  of  safety,  although 
he  is  not  under  the  excitement  of  battle,  and  to  plunge 
with  cool  calculation  into  some  danger  which  he  knows 
and  has  estimated  to  its  full  extent. 

"True  courage  is  prudent  and  limits  itself  strictly 
to  what  is  necessary;  nor  does  it  ever  bluster,  unless 
men  are  wavering  and  have  to  be  carried  along  by  the 
force  of  example. 

"The  courage  of  one  and  the  same  body  of  men  is 
all  or  nothing  according  to  circumstances,  a  fact  which 
is  especially  true  f  Qr  the  very  suggestible  French  Tem- 
perament. A  body  of  Germans  would  certainly  vary 
less  in  this  respect. 

"The  men's  confidence  in  their  officers  is  a  most  im- 
portant factor,  for  the  very  same  soldiers  will  succeed 
or  fail  under  identical  circumstances,  simply  accord- 
ing to  the  way  they  are  led." 

The  following  lines  were  written  by  a  French  offi- 
cer, and  published  in  the  Eclair  of  November  29, 
1914:- 

"Our  idea  of  courage  has  changed.  It  has  not  les- 
sened, but  it  has  become  more  modest,  more  reserved, 
more  humble,  in  a  word,  more  moral.  There  was  some- 
thing brilliant  and  aristocratic  about  the  old  form  of 
courage.  The  men  who  were  brave  stepped  out  from 
the  ranks  and  were  distinguished  in  the  eyes  of  every 


78    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

one.  From  the  first  moment  they  were  seen  to  be  the 
flower  of  the  army,  and  there  were  visible  signs  to 
show  that  they  were  an  exception  to  the  general  rule. 
But  where  there  is  no  crowd  there  can  be  no  exception, 
and  in  the  trenches  there  are  only  one's  two  neigh- 
bours to  be  impressed  by  one's  courage,  and  that  is  as 
much  as  to  say,  nobody.  Trench  courage  is  unaccom- 
panied by  fame,  is  indeed  often  unconscious  of  itself, 
and  has  no  longer  any  spectacular  element.  It  con- 
sists almost  entirely  in  keeping  cool  and  in  giving 
brain  and  will  free  play  for  the  performance  of  their 
functions.  Those  who  have  lived  through  the  battles 
of  Ypres  will  find  glory  enough  in  the  fact  that  they 
are  neither  madmen  nor  candidates  for  the  madhouse. 

' '  This  is  the  glory  that  we  have  won  hitherto,  and  it 
is  not  the  reflected  light  of  a  few  individuals  who  are 
privileged  by  character  of  circumstances,  but  a  result 
of  qualities  which  are  shared  by  our  whole  race." 

An  officer,  who  has  been  more  than  two  years  at  the 
front,  writes: — 

"In  these  muddy  ditches,  carpeted  with  wet  straw, 
where  our  soldiers  live,  they  truly  attain  the  maximum 
limit  of  human  suffering,  of  the  misery  which  is  en- 
tailed by  privation  and  icy  cold,  of  strain  which  con- 
tinues day  after  day,  and  of  distress  which  knows  no 
end.  But  it  must  be  confessed  that  one's  ideas  of  a 
thing  are  perhaps  sometimes  worse  than  the  thing  it- 
self, and  besides,  one  grows  accustomed  to  anything. 
I  never  heard  a  single  complaint,  and  it  was  not  from 
bashfulness,  for  these  soldiers  of  ours  are  not  bashful 
in  the  least.  And  I  not  only  did  not  hear  any  com- 
plaints, but,  although  the  conditions  of  life  were  as 
hard  as  they  could  possibly  be,  I  saw  none  save  cheer- 
ful men,  whose  cheerfulness  was  drawn  from  the  deep- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER   7(J 

est  wellsprings  of  the  national  temperament,  and  was 
compounded  of  confidence,  optimism,  and  determina- 
tion." 

Another  soldier  writes : — 

"On  the  evening  of  the  24th  we  were  suddenly  sent 
to  a  trench  in  the  firing-line  near  Ypres,  and  there  we 
stayed  underground  for  thirteen  nights  and  twelve 
days — I  was  wounded  on  the  thirteenth  day.  We  were 
covered  with  mud,  drenched  by  fog  at  night  and  numb 
from  sitting  still,  while  the  furious  hail  of  bullets, 
shrapnel,  and  howitzer  shells  never  stopped  either  day 
or  night  for  so  much  as  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 

11  ...  It  was  good-bye  to  all  our  dreams  of  theatri- 
cal heroism,  sweeping  charges,  and  bayonets  reddened 
with  the  blood  of  the  hated  enemy.  Instead  of  all  this 
we  were  choked  with  the  smoke  of  bursting  shells,  were 
deafened  by  their  din,  buried  under  their  fragments, 
heard  the  cries  of  the  wounded,  though  powerless  to 
move  to  their  aid,  Were  hit  in  the  face  by  one  comrade 's 
brains,  saw  the  arm  of  another  fly  into  space,  picked 
up  a  third  whose  feet  were  crushed,  and  carried  off  a 
fourth  with  a  shattered  chest.  All  this  we  had  to  see 
and  hear,  and  though  we  might  shudder,  we  must  not 
quail.  We  had  stolen  a  march  upon  the  fate  which 
would  one  day  lay  us  in  our  graves,  for  we  were  buried 
alive  and  a  prey  to  nightmare-dreams  of  infernal  tor- 
ments." 

Crile,  in  discussing  the  physiological  factors  in- 
volved in  this  waiting  under  fire,  says : — 

"In  mechanistic  terms  the  phenomena  manifested  by 
the  soldier  waiting  under  fire  may  be  interpreted  as 
follows:  His  brain  is  activated  by  the  approach  of 
the  enemy.  The  activated  brain  in  turn  stimulates  the 
adrenals,  the  thyroid,  the  liver.  In  consequence  thy- 


reoiodin,  adrenalin,  and  glycogen  are  thrown  into  the 
blood  in  more  than  normal  quantities.  These  activat- 
ing substances  are  for  the  purpose  of  facilitating  at- 
tack or  escape.  As  the  secretions  thus  mobilized  are 
utilized  in  neither  attack  nor  escape,  heat  and  the  mus- 
cular actions  of  shaking  and  trembling  are  produced. 
The  rapid  transformation  of  energy  causes  a  corre- 
spondingly rapid  production  of  acid  by-products. 
These  increased  acid  by-products  stimulate  the  res- 
piratory centre  to  greater  activity  to  eliminate  the  car- 
bonic acid  gas.  The  increased  adrenalin  output  mo- 
bilizes the  circulation  in  the  limbs;  withdraws  blood 
from  the  abdominal  area ;  causes  increased  heart  action 
and  dilatation  of  the  pupils.  In  addition,  the  increased 
acidity  causes  increased  sweating,  increased  thirst, 
and  increased  urinary  output,  all  of  these  water  phe- 
nomena being  adaptation  for  the  neutralization  of 
acidity. 

"Thus  the  intense  activation  of  the  soldier  waiting 
under  fire  for  orders  is  explained  on  mechanistic 
grounds,  and  the  resultant  changes  in  the  brain,  the 
adrenals,  and  the  liver  are  easily  demonstrable.  It  is 
this  strong  stimulation  of  the  kinetic  system  to  fight 
or  to  flight  that  in  the  first  experience  sometimes  re- 
sults in  fleeing.  The  subsequent  stimulus  is  never  so 
intense  as  the  primary  stimulus,  and  with  experience 
the  kinetic  system  is  progressively  less  driven,  until 
at  last  the  soldier  is  said  to  be  'steady  under  fire.' 
(A  Mechanistic  Conception  of  War  and  Peace,  pp.  19- 
20.) 

An  under-officer,  in  discussing  the  mind  of  the  sol- 
dier, said  to  me  not  long  ago :  '  *  When  a  man  advances, 
he  is  as  though  he  were  pushed  forward  in  spite  of 
himself;  it  may  be  displeasing,  but  he  does  it.  There 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      81 

is  a  motor  force  in  one,  which  drives  one  forward. 
There  is  an  unconscious  desire  to  place  oneself  in  the 
right  place.  We  find  our  right  places  and  keep  them, 
as  the  result  of  previous  discipline." 

The  influence  of  the  officer  is  all-important  at  the 
moment  of  attack.  He  determines  the  mental  and 
moral  tone  of  his  soldiers.  The  soldier,  for  his  part, 
seeks  only  to  perform  those  acts  which  seem  to  him 
most  suited  to  gain  the  desired  end.  He  falls  into 
place  automatically;  he  refuses  to  make  a  detour,  ex- 
cept when  necessary;  he  has  a  stern  sense  of  duty. 
This,  and  his  desire  to  execute  orders — even  at  the 
risk  of  his  life — makes  the  ideal  soldier.  One  who 
stops  and  questions  is  acting  contrary  to  his  own  best 
interests, — no  less  than  to  those  of  his  country.  The 
soldier  reflects  and  should  reflect  but  little.  Ideas  of 
patriotism  come  only  upon  reflection.  Heroic  acts  are 
rarely  or  never  due  to  this  feeling.  Such  influences 
are  doubtless  unconsciously  at  work  in  the  soldier,  but 
he  does  not  perceive  them.  On  the  contrary,  one  idea 
which  is  most  important  is  the  constantly  increasing 
hatred  of  the  enemy.  In  the  case  of  the  French  sol- 
diers, and  more  particularly  the  English,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  present  war,  there  was  but  little  personal 
animosity;  but,  as  time  went  on,  and  the  soldiers  per- 
ceived the  frightful  wrongs  which  had  been  perpe- 
trated by  the  enemy,  and  the  evils  which  had  befallen 
their  own  country,  the  feeling  of  hate  has  gradually 
increased,  until  today  it  is  certainly  a  formidable  force 
— though  of  relatively  recent  origin. 

As  Maeterlinck  (in  The  Light  Beyond,  p.  295) 
says : — 

"It  is  nevertheless  the  fact  that,  in  the  moment  of 
supreme  peril,  little  remains  of  all  these  distinctions 


82    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

and  that  no  force  in  the  world  can  drive  to  its  death  a 
people  which  does  not  bear  within  itself  the  strength 
to  confront  it.  Our  soldiers  make  no  mistake  upon 
this  point.  Question  the  men  returning  from  the 
trenches:  they  detest  the  enemy>  they  abhor  the  ag- 
gressor, the  unjust  and  the  arrogant  aggressor,  un- 
couth, too  often  cruel  and  treacherous ;  but  they  do  not 
hate  the  man:  they  do  him  justice;  they  pity  him;  and, 
after  the  battle,  in  the  defenceless  wounded  soldier  or 
disarmed  prisoner  they  recognize,  with  astonishment, 
a  brother  in  misfortune  who,  like  themselves,  is  submit- 
ting to  duties  and  laws  which,  like  themselves,  he  too 
believes  lofty  and  necessary.  Under  the  insufferable 
enemy  they  see  an  unhappy  man  who  likewise  is  bear- 
ing the  burden  of  life.  They  forget  the  things  which 
divide  them  to  recall  only  those  which  unite  them  in  a 
common  destiny;  and  they  teach  us  a  great  lesson." 

In  making  a  bayonet  attack,  the  end  and  aim  of  every 
soldier  is  the  complete  destruction  of  the  enemy.  They 
look  upon  their  actions  in  such  circumstances  as  praise- 
worthy, moral  and  perfectly  justifiable,  and  have  no 
thought  of  murder  or  homicide  in  connection  with 
them.  When  it  is  pointed  out  that  this  same  action  on 
their  part  in  times  of  peace  would  be  considered  a 
crime,  they  seem  quite  "taken  aback."  They  have 
been  trained  so  long  to  kill  that  it  has  become  second 
nature  to  them.  They  reason  thus:  "Each  soldier 
killed  lessens  my  own  chance  of  being  killed.  Hence 
it  is  perfectly  justifiable;  I  kill  in  self-defence."  A 
soldier  always  attacks  the  whole  group  of  the  enemy, 
— not  any  individual  in  that  group.  He  feels  no  indi- 
vidual animosity,  and  no  individual  pity  for  the  man 
he  has  killed.  In  a  fight,  the  object  he  wishes  to  obtain 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      83 

is  that  of  killing  off  the  entire  enemy-group.  When 
this  is  accomplished  he  feels  that  a  good  piece  of  work 
has  been  done. 

Crile  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that : — 

"Soldiers  say  that  they  find  relief  in  any  muscular 
action ;  but  the  supreme  bliss  of  f orgetfulness  is  in  an 
orgy  of  lustful,  satisfying  killing  in  a  hand-to-hand 
bayonet  action,  when  the  grunted  breath  of  the  enemy 
is  heard,  and  his  blood  flows  warm  on  the  hand.  This 
is  a  fling  back  in  phylogeny  to  the  period  when  man 
had  not  controlled  fire,  had  not  fashioned  weapons; 
when  in  mad  embrace  he  tore  the  flesh  with  his  angry 
teeth  and  felt  the  warm  blood  flow  over  his  thirsty 
face.*  In  the  hand-to-hand  fight  the  soldier  sees 
neither  to  the  right  nor  to  the  left.  His  eyes  are  fas- 
tened on  one  man — his  man.  In  this  lust-satisfying 
encounter  injuries  are  not  felt,  all  is  exhilaration;  in- 
jury and  death  alike  are  painless.  A  life-sized  photo- 
graph giving  each  detail  of  the  face  of  a  soldier  thus 
transformed  in  the  supreme  moment  of  hand-to-hand 
combat  would  give  the  key  to  the  origin  of  war" 
(pp.  20-21). 

"At  the  end  of  the  first  year  of  the  war  it  was  esti- 
mated that  ten  million  soldiers  had  been  killed, 
wounded,  or  were  missing. 

"The  common  causes  of  death  are:  (a)  fragmenta- 
tion of  the  body — a  sudden,  painless  exit;  (b)  shock — 
a  violent,  restless  exit;  (c)  hemorrhage — a  quiescent, 
fading  exit;  (d)  infections — blood  poisoning,  gas  gan- 
grene, and  tetanus.  These  are  the  wider  avenues 
through  which  the  soldier  marches  into  oblivion. ' ' 

*  See,  in  this  connection,  my  article  on  "The  Occult  Significance 
of  Blood,"  Azoih,  Oct.,  1917. 


84    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

I  questioned  a  man  not  long  ago  as  to  his  sensations 
and  impressions  during  an  actual  bayonet  fight. 
' '  What  were  your  feelings, ' '  I  said,  ' '  when  you  drove 
your  bayonet  into  the  soft  flesh  of  your  antagonist! 
Did  you  feel  horrified  and  revolted?"  "Not  at  all," 
he  replied,  "I  had  a  curious  sensation  in  my  arms  as 
I  felt  the  soft  body,  and  I  grew  fatigued  with  continued 
fighting.  But  the  action  was  of  such  short  duration, 
and  I  felt  all  the  time  that  I  was  fighting  for  my  life, 
and  seeking  only  to  preserve  myself,  by  killing  the 
enemy,  that  I  gave  no  thought  to  him."  The  act  of 
killing  does  not  shock;  that  is  established  beyond 
doubt.  Even  humanitarian  men  feel  no  repugnance  at 
the  moment  of  killing  an  adversary  in  this  manner. 
"One  kills  without  pain  or  fear,"  said  another  soldier 
to  me ;  *  *  a  man  simply  feels  that  he  is  defending  him- 
self. ' '  The  feelings  of  the  non-combatant  seem  useless 
and  silly  to  the  soldier  in  time  of  action. 

It  is  probable  that  the  average  soldier  has  but  little 
time  or  inclination  to  make  psychological  analyses  at 
the  moment  he  is  attacking  an  enemy  with  a  bayonet ! 
The  attack  must  be  made  so  quickly,  and  is  over  so 
soon — that  one  has  hardly  realized  it. 

Such  examples  as  these  serve  to  show  us  the  relative 
emptiness  of  the  soldier's  mind — the  vacuity  of 
thought  and  feeling — at  the  moment  of  making  an  at- 
tack. Intuition,  custom,  duty,  discipline,  take  the  place 
of  reason.  The  soldier  feels  that  the  more  he  kills  the 
less  chance  he  himself  has  of  being  killed.  Thus,  the 
fighter's  mind  may  be  divided,  psychologically,  into 
three  states  or  divisions:  (1)  Monoideism,  or  the 
presence  of  images  recalling  a  single  idea;  (2)  moral 
exaltation;  and  (3)  subordination  to  discipline.  In 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER   85 

some  ways,  then,  it  may  be  seen  that  the  more  machine- 
like  the  soldier  the  better. 


Pain 

It  has  frequently  been  noted  that  soldiers  while 
under  the  mental  and  emotional  stimulus  of  combat  do 
not  feel  pain ;  and  the  cause  of  this  has  long  remained 
a  mystery  to  us.  Writing  on  this  subject,  Dr.  Crile 
says : — 

"Pain  as  a  phenomenon  of  war  exhibits  several 
variations  of  great  interest,  the  key  to  which  is  found 
in  the  conception  of  pain  as  a  part  of  an  adaptive  mus- 
cular action.  Identical  injuries  inflicted  under  vary- 
ing conditions  yield  pain  of  unequal  intensity.  .  .  . 

"We  can  now  offer  a  mechanistic  explanation  of 
these  exceptions  to  the  general  rule  that  bodily  injury 
causes  pain.  During  the  overwhelming  activation  in 
a  charge,  the  stimulus  of  the  sight  of  the  enemy  is  so 
intense  that  no  other  stimulus  can  obtain  possession  of 
the  final  common  path  of  the  brain — the  path  of  ac- 
tion. We  have  elsewhere  shown  that  pain  is  inevitably 
associated  with  muscular  action;  therefore  if  a  bullet 
or  bayonet  wound  is  inflicted  at  the  moment  when  this 
injury  cannot  obtain  possession  of  the  final  common 
path,  it  can  excite  no  muscular  action  and  consequently 
no  pain.  Hunters  attacked  by  wild  beasts  (Living- 
stone) testify  to  the  fact  that  the  tearing  of  the  flesh 
by  claws  and  teeth  cannot  dispossess  the  excessive 
activation  of  the  brain  by  the  realization  of  danger. 
For  this  reason  the  teeth  and  claws  of  the  beast  do 
not  cause  any  adaptive  muscular  response  and  there- 
fore there  is  no  pain.  In  like  manner  the  emotion  of 
fear  in  the  soldier  holds  possession  of  the  final  com- 


86    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAS 

mon  path  so  that  muscular  action  against  local  flesh 
injuries  is  prevented.  Not  only  in  war  does  emotion 
overcome  pain;  so  does  great  anger;  so  does  the  exalta- 
tion of  religious  fanatics  in  their  emotional  rites.  .  .  ." 

Shell-Shock 

With  regard  to  the  psycho-physiological,  or  purely 
physiological  effects  of  the  war  upon  soldiers,  much 
has  been  written,  mostly  of  a  technical  nature,  and 
largely  in  medical  journals.  Such  material  lies  out- 
side the  province  of  this  book;  but  there  are  certain 
phenomena  which  might  appropriately  be  discussed,— 
among  which  we  might  mention  the  after-effects  of 
shell-shock,  the  mental  reactions  following  a  battle  or 
an  attack,  dreams  of  soldiers,  etc.  Doubtless  much 
valuable  psychological  data  of  this  description  could 
be  gathered  at  the  front,  did  occasion  permit,  and  it  is 
earnestly  to  be  hoped  that  this  task  will  be  undertaken 
by  some  one  competent  for  the  work.  For  the  present, 
we  must  content  ourselves  with  a  few  brief  notes  re- 
garding these  conditions,  hoping  that  this  may  in  some 
small  degree  stimulate  others  to  investigate  more 
deeply  this  interesting  field  of  investigation. 

Dr.  E.  Murray  Auer,  who  for  some  time  was  at- 
tached to  the  22nd  General  Hospital  of  the  British 
Expeditionary  Force,  in  a  recent  paper  read  before  the 
Philadelphia  Neurological  Society,  and  printed  in  the 
Medical  Record,  drew  attention  to  many  cases  of 
this  character,  the  after-effects  of  shell-shock,  of  ex- 
plosions, men  who  had  been  buried  by  mine  explosions, 
and  afterwards  rescued,  etc., — and  stated  that,  in  his 
opinion,  these  accidents  or  shocks  often  leave  more 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      87 

or  less  permanent  effects  upon  the  men  who  undergo 
them. 

In  practically  all  the  cases  which  were  observed  by 
Dr.  Auer,  the  patient  had  received  no  appreciable 
physical  injury, — the  effect  being  purely  mental.  One 
such  instance  cited  by  the  physician  was  found  in  a 
boy  nineteen  years  old.  This  boy  had  been  for  three 
days  under  a  sustained  and  heavy  shell  fire.  At  the 
end  of  that  time  he  was  threatened  by  his  sergeant 
with  court-martial  for  sleeping  while  on  sentry  duty. 
This  led  to  an  examination,  and  the  sending  of  the  boy 
to  the  hospital.  He  was  in  a  stupor  for  ten  days.  The 
same  was  true  of  another  soldier  who  had  seen  his 
chum  blown  to  pieces. 

During  the  time  of  this  coma,  which  in  some  cases 
lasted  more  than  a  week,  the  soldiers  gave  the  impres- 
sion that  they  again  were  living  through  the  experi- 
ences which  had  caused  the  stupor  to  come  on.  This 
was  evidenced  by  their  terrified  expressions.  They 
crouched,  started  and  stared  wildly  when  spoken  to. 
One  such  man  rose  from  his  bed  in  the  middle  of  the 
night  and  recited  in  a  one-sided  conversation  his  ex- 
perience of  a  charge,  and  burial  by  a  mine  explosion, 
and  then  relapsed  into  his  stuporous  state. 

Another  result  of  shock,  according  to  Dr.  Auer's 
observations,  is  a  continued  shaking  of  the  entire  body, 
accompanied  by  various  pains  and  unusually  severe 
headaches.  In  some  cases  this  shaking  has  been  ob- 
served to  last  several  days,  and  even  weeks,  although 
in  most  instances  its  duration  is  a  few  hours.  In  one 
instance  this  trembling  came  after  a  soldier  had  twice 
been  buried  in  a  mine  explosion,  had  been  through  a 
charge  and  under  heavy  bombardment  in  a  trench,  and 
finally  was  hit  by  a  piece  of  rock,  which,  while  not  in- 


88    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

juring  him,  knocked  him  down.    In  his  case  the  tremor 
of  the  head  was  marked,  and  lasted  for  some  time. 

Temporary  loss  of  memory  is  a  common  thing  with 
the  men  who  have  been  through  some  extremely  try- 
ing period  or  have  suffered  a  sudden  shock.  In  such 
instances  the  recovery  of  memory  is  as  sudden  as  its 
loss.  One  such  soldier,  after  being  near  a  shell  which 
exploded,  could  remember  nothing  that  happened  to 
him  until  he  came  to  himself,  walking  along  a  lane, 
some  time  later.  Another  man  in  the  hospital  thought 
himself  back  in  the  trenches  and  became  violent,  mov- 
ing his  cupboard  about  as  though  it  were  a  machine 
gun  and  pointing  it  at  his  enemies.  When  he  suddenly 
returned  to  a  normal  state,  he  could  remember  nothing 
of  his  experience. 

Dreams 

One  of  the  most  common,  and  at  the  same  time  most 
pitiful,  of  the  many  mental  results  of  the  struggle  is 
the  inability  to  sleep  soundly  and  recurrence  of  so- 
called  " trench  dreams."  It  is  not  uncommon,  Dr. 
Auer  said,  to  see  soldiers  start  from  their  beds  in  the 
middle  of  the  night,  crying  out  and  weeping, — the 
bodies  bathed  in  perspiration  as  they  dream  of  being 
chased  by  Germans  with  bayonets,  or  of  being  buried 
under  debris,  following  a  mine  explosion,  and  of  losing 
the  trench  in  a  fog, — and  being  unable  to  get  back. 

Dr.  G.  W.  Crile,  in  writing  of  the  dreams  which  sol- 
diers experience,  says: — 

'  *  The  harmony  of  the  sleep  of  the  exhausted  soldier 
has  but  one  discordant  note,  and  that  is  the  dream  of 
battle.  The  dream  is  always  the  same,  always  of  the 
enemy.  It  is  never  a  pleasant  pastoral  dream,  or  a 
dream  of  home,  but  a  dream  of  the  charge,  of  the 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER   89 

bursting  shell,  of  the  bayonet  thrust!  Again  and 
again  in  camp  and  in  hospital  wards,  in  spite  of  the 
great  desire  to  sleep,  a  desire  so  great  that  the  dress- 
ing of  a  compound  fracture  would  not  be  felt,  men 
sprang  up  with  a  battle  cry,  and  reached  for  their 
rifles,  the  dream  outcry  startling  their  comrades, 
whose  thresholds  were  excessively  low  to  the  stimuli 
of  attack. 

"In  the  hospital  wards,  battle  nightmares  were  com- 
mon, and  severely  wounded  men  would  often  spring 
out  of  their  beds.  An  unexpected  analogy  to  this  bat- 
tle nightmare  was  found  in  the  anaesthetic  dreams. 
Precisely  the  same  battle  nightmare,  that  occurred  in 
sleep,  occurred  when  soldiers  were  going  under  or 
coming  out  of  anaesthesia,  when  they  would  often  strug- 
gle valiantly, — for  the  anaesthetic  dream  like  the  sleep 
dream  related  not  to  a  home  scene,  not  to  some  dom- 
inating activation  of  peaceful  days,  but  always  to  the 
enemy,  and  usually  to  a  surprise  attack. 

"One  day  a  French  soldier,  in  the  first  stage  of  anaes- 
thesia, broke  the  stillness  of  the  operating  room,  trans- 
fixing every  one,  while  in  low,  beautiful  tones,  and 
with  intense  feeling,  he  sang  the  Marseillaise."  (Ib., 
pp.  27-28.) 

The  fear  which  is  commonly  found  is  not  the  kind 
which  a  layman  would  expect.  The  soldiers  do  not 
fear  injury  to  themselves.  They  are  rather  afraid  of 
doing  something  wrong,  a  fear  of  an  emergency  in 
which  one  may  fail  and  lose  the  confidence  of  his  com- 
rades. In  one  instance  the  patient  was  afraid  to  go 
to  sleep,  for  fear  he  would  not  awake.  One  man  who 
had  no  fear  of  being  wounded  had  a  wild  desire  to  get 
away  from  the  din  of  battle,  and  seemed  really  afraid 
of  the  noise. 


90    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

Blindness  and  deafness  are  frequently  found,  but 
one  of  the  most  unusual  of  the  phenomena,  in  this  con- 
nection, is  the  presence  of  "photophobia,"  the  fear  of 
looking.  In  many  instances  men  are  found  who  com- 
plain that  they  cannot  see.  In  such  instances,  when 
their  eyes  are  opened  for  them,  they  can  see  without 
any  difficulty.  One  instance  of  this  came  as  the  result 
of  a  trench  dream  in  which  the  soldier  again  lived 
through  his  burial  by  a  mine  explosion  four  weeks  be- 
fore. When  he  awoke,  he  complained  that  he  could 
not  see,  and  imagined  that  his  sight  had  been  lost  as 
a  result  of  the  explosion.  When  the  eyelids  were 
raised,  however,  he  could  see  as  well  as  ever. 

Methods  of  Cure 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  medical  discov- 
eries which  have  resulted  from  the  tending  of  the 
wounded  and  disabled  is  the  value  of  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion in  the  cure  of  men  broken  under  the  constant 
physical  and  nervous  strain  of  modern  warfare. 

In  the  conditions  known  as  "shell-shock,"  in  which 
the  sufferer,  though  not  actually  hit  by  a  shell,  has 
suffered  from  temporary  loss  of  memory,  sight,  smell, 
and  taste  as  the  result  of  concussion,  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion has  been  the  most  potent  remedy  of  the  physician 
in  charge. 

Describing  the  treatment  of  these  shell-shock  cases, 
a  physician  at  one  of  the  London  Army  hospitals  in 
describing  the  treatment  stated  recently : — 

* '  The  patient  is  seated  in  a  chair  and  is  brought  by 
the  operator  into  a  slight  degree  of  hypnosis  in  the 
ordinary  way.  He  is  told  to  clear  his  mind  of  all  other 
thoughts  and  to  concentrate  on  the  single  subject  of 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      91 

his  cure.  If,  as  often  happens,  his  vision  is  affected, 
he  is  told  quietly  and  firmly  by  the  operator  that  the 
defect  has  been  cured  and  that  once  again  he  can  see 
clearly.  In  some  cases  a  single  seance  is  enough;  in 
others,  the  treatment  may  have  to  be  repeated  several 
times.  In  practically  all  cases,  however,  great  im- 
provement, if  not  a  complete  cure,  has  eventually  re- 
sulted." 

In  this  connection,  it  is  interesting  to  learn  that  as 
an  outcome  of  an  offer  he  made  a  little  time  ago  to  the 
War  Office,  to  decorate  a  hospital  ward  as  an  experi- 
ment, Mr.  H.  Kemp  Prosser,  a  "colour  specialist,"  has 
been  engaged  in  preparing  a  colour  ward  for  shell- 
shock  and  nerve  patients  in  Miss  McCaul's  hospital 
for  officers  in  Welbeck  Street,  London.  Explaining  his 
ideas  to  an  Evening  News  representative,  Mr.  Prosser 
said : — 

' '  Shell-shock  is  a  disease  of  the  tissues  of  the  brain,* 
and  I  hold  that  the  right  vibrations  of  colour  will  help 
to  build  them  up.  I  do  away  with  the  sense  of  the 

*  The  newer  view  of  the  facts  is  that  practically  all  cases  of  shell- 
shock  are  primarily  mental  or  emotional  in  character;  and  not  due 
to  lesions  of  the  nervous  system,  as  was  thought  at  first.  The  fact 
of  the  matter  is  that  a  definite  conclusion  has  not  been  reached  upon 
this  vital  point,  as  applied  to  all  cases.  Says  Dr.  George  de  Sweito- 
chowski,  of  King's  College  Hospital,  London — one  of  the  largest 
and  most  modern  hospitals  in  the  world: — 

"It  is  remarkable  that  the  more  civilized  combatants  have  been 
better  able  to  withstand  shell-shock  than  the  natives  of  semi-civilized 
countries.  .  .  .  Various  nerve-complaints  have  been  met,  thus  far, 
that  are  yet  to  be  cleared  up.  Thus,  it  is  still  an  open  question 
whether  some  of  them  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  outcome  of  an 
actual  damage  to  the  body,  or  whether  they  are  the  effect  of  the 
horrors  of  war  on  the  human  mind.  Cases  of  'miraculous  cures'  are 
numerous.  ...  In  the  days  immediately  following  the  conclusion 
of  peace  there  will  be  an  opportunity  of  studying  the  results 


92    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

confinement  of  four  walls,  which  so  affect  the  nerves  by 
introducing  the  colour  vibrations  of  outdoors.  I  open 
the  ceiling  up  to  the  sky  by  decorating  it  in  the  colour 
of  the  firmament-blue.  The  walls  are  thrown  open  by 
being  the  colour  of  the  sunlight:  lemon  yellow.  I  use 
the  green  of  buds  just  bursting,  for  it  is  that  light  the 
nerve-patient  needs,  and  I  have  violet  rays,  which  have 
already  been  proved  so  useful  to  'nerves.'  .  .  . 

" Brown  furniture  is  sometimes  used  in  hospitals; 
that  is  the  colour  of  decay.  Nerve  patients  do  not 
want  to  be  surrounded  by  autumn,  they  must  be  in  the 
spring.  Some  of  them  will  be  conscious  of  colour, 
some  unconscious,  and  others  subconscious,  but  all  are 
affected  by  it.  In  small-pox,  rays  of  red  light  on  a 
patient  prevent  him  from  being  marked,  showing  one 
effect  of  colour. 

"I  shall  only  have  one  picture — of  spring,  in  a 
lemon-yellow  frame — which  will  be  part  of  the  room. 
The  effect  will  be  harmony.  The  curtains  will  be  on 
brackets,  so  that  a  patient  who  needs  a  violet  light 
will  have  that  coloured  curtain  drawn-out  towards 
him,  and  one  who  needs  sunlight  a  yellow  curtain, 
achieved.  The  overwhelming  material  offered  by  the  war  will  be  of 
incalculable  value  to  future  medical  and  surgical  science.  .  .  ." 
(And,  I  may  add,  to  psychological  science  also). 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  there  is  still  a  division  of  opinion  as  to  the 
primary  cause  of  many  cases  of  this  character;  and,  although  some 
of  this  confusion  may  have  arisen  from  the  habit  of  stating  psycho- 
logical terms  in  terms  of  physiology  (as  is  so  often  done  in  the  case 
of  memory,  e.g.} — yet  it  is  doubtless  true  that  the  tendency  is 
to  regard  such  cases,  more  and  more,  from  the  standpoint  of  men- 
tal and  emotional  lesions,  rather  than  anatomical  lesions ;  and  further, 
to  seek  for  the  innate  susceptibility  to  shell-shock  in  earlier  emotional 
stresses  in  the  patient  thus  shocked.  To  this  end,  psycho-analysis 
has  been  employed  to  good  effect — although  all  kinds  of  psychothera- 
peutic  measures  have  been  employed  to  advantage. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      93 

Presently  they  will  probably  be  able  to  stand  stronger 
vibrations,  such  as  orange.*' 

The  therapeutic  value  of  colour  is  now  becoming 
more  generally  recognized.  Different  colours  emanate 
different  forms  of  vibration.  These  vibrations  react 
on  the  brain  and  nervous  system  in  a  remarkable  and 
very  real  manner,  especially  in  the  case  of  a  very  sen- 
sitive person,  and  claims  have  been  made  of  extraordi- 
nary cures  effected  by  this  treatment.  The  experi- 
ments of  Mr.  Prosser  will,  therefore,  be  awaited  with 
considerable  interest,  and  if  they  are  successful,  a  pam- 
phlet explaining  the  procedure  is  to  be  sent  to  all  the 
military  hospitals. 

Sleep:  Fatigue 

'Soldiers  are  of  course  subject,  at  times,  to  long  pe- 
riods of  intense  effort  and  activity,  fatigue,  loss  of 
sleep,  exhaustion,  etc.;  and  though  the  body  can  in  a 
measure  accommodate  itself  to  these  conditions,  and 
an  amount  of  hardship  and  fatigue  can  be  undergone 
by  the  trained  soldier  which  would  have  been  impossi- 
ble for  that  man  before  his  training  had  begun,  never- 
theless, the  body  ultimately  reacts,  demands  rest  and 
sleep ;  and,  if  this  is  not  supplied,  a  nervous  and  men- 
tal breakdown  follows.  Says  Crile : 

1 '  In  the  retreat  from  Mons  to  the  Marne  we  have  an 
extraordinary  human  experiment,  in  which  several 
hundred  thousand  men  secured  little  sleep  during  nine 
days,  and  in  addition  made  forced  marches  and  fought 
one  of  the  greatest  battles  in  history. 

4 'How  then  did  these  men  survive  nine  days  appar- 
ently without  opportunity  for  sleep?  They  did  an 
extraordinary  thing, — they  slept  while  they  marched! 
Sheer  fatigue  slowed  down  their  pace  to  a  rate  that 


94    PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

would  permit  them  to  sleep  while  walking.  When  they 
halted  they  fell  asleep.  They  slept  in  water,  and  on 
rough  ground,  when  suffering  the  pangs  of  hunger  and 
of  thirst,  and  even  when  severely  wounded.  They 
cared  not  for  capture,  not  even  for  death,  if  only  they 
could  sleep. " 

The  complete  exhaustion  of  the  men  in  this  retreat 
from  Mons  to  the  Marne  is  vividly  told  by  Dr.  Gros  of 
the  American  Ambulance,  who  with  others  went  to  the 
battlefield  of  the  Marne  to  collect  the  wounded.  On 
their  way  to  Meaux  they  met  many  troops  fleeing,  all 
hurriedly  glancing  back,  looking  more  like  hunted  ani- 
mals than  men,  intent  only  on  reaching  a  haven  of 
safety. 

When  the  ambulances  arrived  at  Meaux  at  midnight 
they  found  the  town  in  utter  darkness.  Not  a  sound 
was  heard  in,  the  street,  not  a  light  was  seen.  The  only 
living  things  were  hundreds  of  cats.  They  called,  they 
shouted,  in  vain  they  tried  to  arouse  some  one.  At  last 
they  succeeded  in  arousing  the  mayor,  to  whom  they 
said:  "Can  you  tell  us  in  what  city  we  will  find  the 
wounded  I  We  were  told  there  were  many  here. ' '  The 
mayor  replied :  * '  My  village  is  full  of  wounded.  I  will 
show  you."  With  the  aid  of  a  flickering  lamp,  they 
threaded  their  way  through  the  dark  streets  to  a  dilap- 
idated school  building.  Not  a  light!  Not  a  sound! 
There  was  the  stillness  of  death !  They  rapped  louder, 
there  was  no  response!  Pushing  open  the  door,  they 
found  the  building  packed  with  wounded — over  five 
hundred — with  all  kinds  of  wounds.  Some  were  dying, 
some  dead,  but  every  one  was  in  a  deep  sleep.  Bleed- 
ing, yet  asleep;  legs  shattered,  yet  asleep;  abdomen 
and  chest  torn  wide  open,  yet  asleep.  They  were  lying 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      95 

on  the  hard  floor  or  on  bits  of  straw.    Not  a  groan,  not 
a  motion,  not  a  complaint — only  sleep! 

To  sum  up,  then :  The  mental  activity  of  the  soldier 
is  considerably  lessened  by  his  life  in  the  cantonments ; 
and  is  still  further  reduced  by  his  life  in  the  trenches. 
Here  even  manual  work  is  very  rarely  undertaken; 
conversation  is  limited,  and  bodily  or  physical  acts 
occupy  the  place  of  prime  importance.  The  senses  and 
the  attention  must  be  constantly  on  the  alert  and  keen 
— though  certain  "oscillations"  naturally  take  place 
here  also.  Nevertheless,  the  soldier  constantly  strains 
to  keep  them  intact.  His  personal  salvation,  as  well  as 
the  lives  of  his  comrades,  depends  upon  his  ability  to 
do  so.  When  he  attacks,  this  tension  of  the  inner  being 
reaches  its  climax;  and  the  mind  becomes  almost 
empty.  Such  reasoning  as  takes  place  is  of  the  most 
simple  and  primitive  character — such  as  how  best  to 
save  his  own  life,  seek  shelter,  etc.  At  such  mo- 
ments the  value  of  example — the  effects  of  imitation — 
are  all-important;  hence  the  necessity  of  carefully 
trained  officers.  Threats  or  brutality  of  language  will 
not  stir  the  men  at  such  times ;  what  the  officer  should 
seek  to  do  is  to  throw  into  the  minds  of  his  men,  at  the 
psychological  moment,  an  idea  or  image  capable  of 
invading  the  entire  consciousness,  and  taking  posses- 
sion of  the  very  being.  The  officer  thus  stands  for  the 
country,  for  the  flag,  for  patriotism,  for  everything 
impelling.  An  example  of  bravery  on  the  part  of  an 
officer  will  inspire  his  men  as  nothing  else  will  or  can. 
The  men  obey  their  commanding  officers  implicitly, — 
feeling  that  their  own  lives  depend  largely  upon  fol- 
lowing orders.  They  feel  that  they  are  as  liable  to  be 
killed  in  any  one  place  as  in  another,  but  that,  if  they 


obey  orders,  these  chances  may  perhaps  be  diminished, 
—and  then,  too,  the  soldier  will  die  doing  his  duty — a 
feeling  which  remains  very  keen  among  all  the  men  at 
the  front,  on  whatever  battle-line. 

When  the  soldier  has  been  in  the  trenches  for  some 
time  he  gradually  loses  his  good  manners.  Cleanli- 
ness, personal  care,  etc.,  are  largely  disregarded;  but 
these  moral  feelings  very  quickly  revive  upon  the  re- 
turn of  the  soldier  to  the  civil  zone,  and  the  activities 
of  normal  life.  As  one  soldier  expressed  it,  "it  is  like 
being  born  again."  Nevertheless,  it  is  possible  that 
the  habits  of  inactivity  and  relative  idleness  which  have 
been  engendered  in  the  soldier  may  persist  more  or 
less  through  life ;  and  if  this  is  found  to  be  the  case,  it 
will  certainly  have  a  detrimental  effect  upon  the  com- 
munity inhabited  by  him. 

The  psychology  of  the  combatant  may,  therefore,  be 
summed  up  as  follows:  life  in  the  trenches  tends  to 
make  the  mind  childish,  simple,  vacuous ;  the  senses  are 
stimulated ;  the  will  rendered  intense ;  the  thoughts  are 
centred  upon  one  idea — of  dominating  the  enemy. 
Aspirations,  regrets,  ideas,  all  find  their  place  taken 
by  bodily  sensations  and  activities.  The  soldier  stands 
ready  to  execute  his  orders  at  the  right  moment,  with- 
out reflection.  In  whatever  he  does,  his  acts  and 
thoughts  become  one.  The  most  primitive  of  all  our 
instincts — the  instinct  of  self-preservation — that  which 
we  share  equally  with  everything  that  lives — comes  to 
the  fore,  and  assumes  a  vital,  a  dominating  position. 
All  the  centuries  of  intervening  civilization  are  swept 
away  in  an  instant ;  and  we  see  before  us,  not  the  cul- 
tured gentleman  of  yesterday,  but  the  primitive  brute- 
beast,  fighting  for  his  existence  and  his  life  in  precisely 
the  same  way  that  his  ancestors  fought — and  with  no 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER      97 

other,  higher  ideals  in  mind !  It  shows  us  at  once  and 
graphically  the  effects  upon  the  mind  of  War — and 
proves  to  us  that  it  leads,  not  only  to  material  destruc- 
tion, and  to  mental  and  moral  deterioration,  but  also 
to  the  very  extinction  of  the  spirit  of  man  himself — in 
the  almost  instant  reversion  of  civilized  man  to  sav- 
agery. 

[NOTE.  Since  the  above  chapter  was  written,  several  important 
books  have  appeared,  which,  unfortunately,  I  cannot  do  more  than 
refer  to.  The  first  of  these  is  that  of  Lieutenant  Coningsby  Dawson, 
— whose  book  The  Glory  of  the  Trenches,  throws  some  valuable  side- 
lights on  the  psychology  of  the  soldier,  and  particularly  upon  the 
nature  and  mechanism  of  fear.  The  second  book  is  Elliot-Smith 
and  Pear's  work  on  Shell  Shock, — which  gives  an  illuminating  ac- 
count of  the  genesis,  nature  and  treatment  of  this  distressing  malady, 
— and  fully  bears  out  the  remarks  made  in  my  Footnote,  on  pp. 
91-92.] 


PART  II 
SUPERNORMAL 


CHAPTER  V 

PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA,   SCIENCE,   AND  THE  WAR 

WE  have  now  studied  the  mind  of  the  soldier  from  the 
moment  he  left  his  home,  during  mobilization,  while  in 
the  cantonments,  the  trenches,  and  during  the  attack 
—to  that  moment  when  he  has  met  death  at  the  hands  of 
the  enemy ;  and  it  now  becomes  our  duty  to  endeavour 
to  trace  that  noble  soul  beyond  the  grave,  and  to  show 
that  he  is  still  active,  that  he  still  possesses  the  same 
memory  and  characteristics  we  associated  with  him  in 
life,  and  which  we  knew  and  loved.  This  portion  of 
our  task  is  more  difficult.  Not  only  are  we  now  con- 
fronted with  the  innate  difficulties  of  the  task  itself, 
but  with  the  prejudices  and  opposition  of  mankind  ;— 
also,  unfortunately,  by  fraud  and  error — which  so 
often  creep  into  our  observations  in  this  field.  How- 
ever, we  must  do  our  best  to  pierce  through  these  con- 
ventions and  difficulties,  and  to  study  the  facts  as  we 
find  them.  Before  we  can  do  that,  however,  there  are 
certain  fundamental  principles  which  must  be  under- 
stood, for  it  is  upon  their  appreciation  that  the  whole 
of  the  succeeding  argument  is  based.  This  will,  I  hope, 
become  clearer  as  we  proceed. 

The  staggering  incomprehensibility  of  the  present 
world-war  has,  of  course,  appalled  humanity,  and  its 
ravages  and  after-effects  will  certainly  be  felt  for  gen- 
erations to  come.  When  we  come  to  ask  ourselves  the 

101 


102  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

question :  How  could  such  a  catastrophe  overcome  the 
world  at  the  present  stage  of  our  civilization  and  cul- 
ture? we  are  confronted  with  a  serious  problem,  but 
one  which  is,  nevertheless,  comprehensible,  when  we 
understand  humanity  and  its  motives.  For,  analyzed 
down  to  its  core,  does  not  the  present  conflict  offer  us 
the  most  convincing  proof  possible  that  it  is  the  preva- 
lence of  the  doctrine  of  materialism  which  has  brought 
it  about?  Is  it  not  ultimately  due  to  the  international 
jealousies  and  strife  for  material  power  and  gain 
which  precipitated  and  rendered  possible  the  present 
conflict?  I  do  not  say  that  many  nations  had  not  a 
high  motive  for  entering  the  world  war — Belgium  and 
France  to  protect  their  countries;  Great  Britain  to 
succour  Belgium,  and  live  up  to  her  treaty  obligations ; 
America,  to  safeguard  the  lives  of  her  citizens,  which 
were  being  murdered ;  and  Serbia  and  other  countries 
for  similar  defensive  reasons.  But  behind  and  beyond 
all  this  lies  the  motivation  of  the  war,  as  especially 
conceived  by  the  Central  Powers ;  and  that  was  to  in- 
crease their  worldly  power  and  fulfil  their  materialistic 
ambitions.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  materialism  which  is 
at  the  root  of  the  entire  matter.  Did  men  but  realize 
that  they  are  spiritually  one;  that  the  things  of  the 
spirit  are  really  the  things  that  count;  and  that  there 
are  other  things  besides  money  and  power  in  this 
world — did  they  but  realize  these  things,  such  a  war  as 
the  present  would  have  been  impossible;  men  would 
live  together  in  harmony  and  happiness,  furthering 
their  common  good,  by  common  means,  for  common 
ends ;  and  Peace  would  reign  upon  this  earth,  instead 
of  the  bloody  convulsions  of  humanity  which  we  see 
being  enacted  before  us. 
And  the  answer  of  the  riddle  has  just  been  pointed 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  103 

out.  It  is  because  we  in  the  West — though  we  may  ac- 
cept the  fact  that  we  are  or  "have"  a  soul  or  spirit  of 
some  sort — do  not  accept  this  belief  in  any  vital  man- 
ner; we  rather  dally  with  it  in  a  dilettante  fashion,  as 
a  sort  of  intellectual  curiosity,  without  for  a  moment 
realizing  that  it  has  a  great  and  vital  meaning  for  us, 
and  is  an  experience  which  we  ourselves  must  one  day 
undergo.  When  Mr.  John  E.  Meader  and  I  wrote  our 
book  on  Death:  Its  Causes  and  Phenomena,  some  years 
ago,  we  drew  attention  to  the  curious  lack  of  interest 
which  seemed  to  be  manifested,  on  all  hands,  regard- 
ing this  question  of  death  and  the  after-life,  and  the 
possible  fate  of  the  soul.  Everywhere  we  turned  we 
seemed  to  find  this  remarkable  indifference  to  the  sub- 
ject, or  that  curious  ostrich  philosophy  which  refuses 
to  discuss  it  at  all.  With  the  young,  this  might  per- 
haps be  considered  a  healthy  sign ;  but  for  the  mature 
and  thoughtful  mind,  to  refuse  to  consider  it,  is  indeed 
a  paradox.  As  Professor  Fournier  D'Albe  so  well 
says,  in  his  New  Light  on  Immortality  (pp.  1-3) : 

"The  twentieth  century  is  too  busy  to  occupy  itself 
much  with  the  problems  presented  by  death  and  what 
follows  it.  The  man  of  the  world  makes  his  will,  in- 
sures his  life,  and  dismisses  his  own  death  with  the 
scantiest  forms  of  politeness.  The  churches,  once 
chiefly  interested  in  the  ultimate  fate  of  the  soul  after 
death,  now  devote  the  bulk  of  their  energies  to  moral 
instruction  and  social  amelioration.  Death  is  all  but 
dead  as  an  overshadowing  doom  and  an  all-absorbing 
subject  of  controversy. 

"The  spectacle  of  2,000,000,000  human  beings  rush- 
ing to  their  doom,  with  no  definite  knowledge  of  what 
that  doom  may  be,  and  yet  taking  life  as  it  comes, 
happily  and  merrily  enough  as  a  rule,  seems  strange 


104  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

and  almost  unaccountable.  The  spectacle  somewhat 
resembles  that  inside  a  prison  during  the  reign  of 
terror,  when  prisoners  passed  their  time  in  animated 
and  even  gay  converse,  not  knowing  who  would  be 
called  out  next  to  be  trundled  to  the  scaffold. 

"Every  year  some  40,000,000  human  corpses  are 
consigned  to  the  earth.  A  million  tons  of  human  flesh 
and  blood  and  bone  are  discarded  as  of  no  further 
service  to  humanity,  to  be  gradually  transformed  into 
other  substances,  and  perhaps  other  forms  of  life. 
Meanwhile  the  human  race,  in  its  myriad  forms,  lives 
and  thrives.  .  .  .  The  individual  perishes,  the  species 
survives.  .  .  ."  * 

And  Professor  F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  of  Oxford  Univer- 
sity, has  also  said  (Humanism,  and  Other  Essays,  pp. 
284-86) : 

"Death  is  a  topic  on  which  philosophers  have  been 
astonishingly  commonplace.  .  .  .  Spinoza  was  right  in 
maintaining  that  there  is  no  subject  concerning  which 
the  sage  thinks  less  than  about  death, — which,  never- 
theless, is  a  great  pity,  for  the  sage  is  surely  wrong. 
There  is  no  subject  concerning  which  he,  if  he  is  an 
idealist  and  has  the  courage  of  his  opinion,  ought  to 
think  more,  and  ought  to  have  more  interesting  things 
to  say.  ..." 

The  reason  for  all  this,  of  course,  as  so  often  insisted 
upon  before,  is  that  we  are  all  practically  materialists, 
though  we  may  be  religious  or  philosophical  idealists. 
We  do  not,  like  the  Hindus,  let  the  fact  of  immortality 
permeate  our  lives,  and  colour  and  influence  them.  In 
the  orient,  this  is  so.  They  live  their  religion,  as  well 
as  profess  it.  They  regard  the  *  *  realities  "  of  life  as  the 

*  These  figures  were  of  course  covering  ante-war  days ;  at  present 
they  must  be  very  materially  increased. 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  105 

unseen  things,  and  the  material  things  the  transitory 
and  shallow  ones.  We  of  the  west,  on  the  other  hand, 
regard  their  beliefs  as  mere  " superstition";  and  con- 
sequently each  regards  the  other  as  a  dreamer,  and  a 
man  striving  after  vain  and  foolish  things.  Never  is 
the  essential  truth  of  Kipling's  "For  East  is  East 
and  West  is  West,  and  never  the  twain  shall  meet" 
brought  home  to  us  more  forcefully  than  in  consider- 
ing these  problems ;  for  it  will  be  observed  that  there 
is  no  common  ground  or  starting-point  from  which 
they  can  both  emerge,  upon  which  they  can  both  stand. 
One  believes  he  is  spirit,  and  has  a  transitory  material 
body ;  the  other,  that  he  is  here  in  this  world  of  reality, 
which  is  the  only  thing  he  is  sure  of,  and  that  the  world 
of  spirit  is  too  far-off  and  unreal,  too  tenuous  and  un- 
certain, for  him  to  worry  his  head  about  just  at  pres- 
ent. He  may  passively  adhere  to  some  creed  or  for- 
mula, which  assures  him  he  has  an  "Immortal  soul," 
• 

but  it  is  no  part  of  his  daily  life  and  thoughts ;  it  is  no 
essential  part  of  his  being. 

And  which  is  right?  Is  man  essentially  spirit,  or 
body?  Is  the  spirit  permanent  and  the  body  transi- 
tory, or  is  the  body  the  important  thing,  and  the  mind 
and  soul  a  mere  "epiphenomenon"? 

This  is  a  question  of  fact.  It  is  one  which  cannot  be 
settled  by  dogmatic  opinion,  either  for  or  against.  It 
should  be  capable  of  scientific  solution,  just  as  an}' 
other  question  of  fact  is  capable  of  solution,  and  in 
much  the  same  manner.  Philosophical  arguments  are 
useless  and  worthless,  for  solving  this  great  question 
of  a  future  life.  Orthodox  religion  is  similarly  help- 
less. Those  who  believe  will  of  course  say  that  they 
know  that  the  future  life  is  a  fact ;  but  they  are  offset 
by  the  free-thinkers  and  the  atheists  who  insist,  with 


106  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

equal  certainty,  that  they  know  that  it  is  not!  And 
when  we  come  to  examine  their  arguments,  we  find 
them  both  equally  valueless, — for  the  simple  reason 
that  they  express  merely  personal  opinions,  and  not 
knowledge,  based  upon  facts,  at  all.  The  one  base 
their  belief  upon  tradition  and  the  Bible, — the  others 
upon  the  negative  conclusions  of  modern  science — and 
logic  shows  us  that  it  is  impossible  to  prove  a  negative. 
Thus  both  merely  express  their  personal  opinions,— 
orthodox  or  the  reverse, — without  any  scientific  justi- 
fication to  back  up  their  statements  or  beliefs. 

And,  when  we  come  to  think  of  it,  Christianity  itself 
is  based  neither  upon  its  ethical  teachings  nor  its  spe- 
cific evidences ;  but  rather  upon  a  fact — a  psychical  phe- 
nomenon. That  phenomenon  is  the  resurrection  of 
Christ.  St.  Paul  himself  said  (I.  Cor.,  15:14):  "If 
Christ  be  not  risen,  then  is  our  preaching  vain,  and 
your  faith  is  also  vain."  This  is  a  frank  admission 
that  the  Christian  faith  is  based  upon  a  psychical  phe- 
nomenon, and  not  upon  anything  resembling  tradition 
or  belief.  These  much-disputed  and  much-despised 
psychic  phenomena,  therefore,  form  the  basis,  or,  as 
Mr.  Myers  so  well  said,  "the  preamble  to  all  religions." 
They  are  the  root  and  foundation  of  them  all.  With- 
out them — without  some  tangible  proof  that  a  spiritual 
world  of  some  sort  exists — man  would  soon  lapse  into 
materialism;  and  it  is  only  because  these  manifesta- 
tions so  constantly  happen,  because  so  many  men  and 
women  have  experienced  occurrences  of  the  kind,  spon- 
taneously and  otherwise,  that  they  feel  that  material- 
ism does  not,  in  fact,  cover  all  the  facts  of  life,  but  that 
there  are  others,  not  included  in  its  philosophy,  which 
point  to  the  persistence  of  the  soul  of  man,  and  the 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  107 

actuality  of  a  spiritual  world,  and  which  render  that 
world  a  very  real  and  a  very  near  reality. 

These  questions  are  all  the  more  pressing  and  im- 
perative to  us,  just  now,  by  reason  of  the  great  world- 
war  which  is  raging  in  Europe.  Every  day,  thousands 
of  human  souls  are  being  sent,  either  into  some  spirit- 
ual world,  or  into  oblivion.  For  those  who  witness 
such  a  spectacle,  no  less  than  to  the  men  themselves, 
it  is  assuredly  a  fundamentally  important  question  to 
settle,  one  way  or  the  other.  Is  man  immortal,  or  does 
he  die  like  an  animal?  Shall  we  see  those  we  love,  and 
who  sacrifice  their  lives  on  the  altar  of  liberty,  for  the 
cause  of  justice  and  humanity,  again;  or  shall  we  bid 
them  good-bye  forever,  and  see  them  vanish  like  a 
dream? 

Various  religions  have  given  us  definite  answers  to 
these  questions;  but  the  answers  have  varied  accord- 
ing to  the  religion.  Perhaps,  too,  the  practical  mind 
of  today  is  no  longer  satisfied  with  vague  assurances, 
but  seeks  verifiable  fact.  And  when  we  ask  for  such 
facts,  the  proof  is  lacking.  The  inner  conviction  to 
mankind — that  the  spirit  of  man  will  survive — still  re- 
mains almost  as  strong  as  ever,  for  the  majority;  but 
the  evidence  for  that  conviction  seems  to  be  strangely 
lacking;  and  when  the  heart  is  torn  by  anguish,  when 
pain  and  sorrow  rise  up  and  blind  us  till  we  sink  into 
the  black  depths  of  despair,  then,  in  very  truth,  we 
seek  something  more  substantial  than  mere  authority, 
more  comforting  than  pious  platitudes;  we  seek  to 
know  and  to  prove  to  ourselves  beyond  all  shadow  of  a 
doubt  that  the  one  we  loved  is  still  living;  that  he  still 
loves  and  is  happy,  and  that  his  soul  has  found  a  fit 
dwelling  place  of  light,  where  peace  and  contentment 
and  harmony  prevail. 


108  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

We  seek  to  know  the  truth ;  but,  with  Pilate,  ' '  What 
is  truth?"  Can  we  find  our  answer  to  these  perplex- 
ing problems  in  the  disputed  realm  of  spiritualism  and 
psychical  research! 

Let  me  begin  by  positively  warning  the  reader  that 
if  he  attempts  to  satisfy  himself  upon  these  questions 
by  running  about  from  one  medium  to  another,  he  will 
gain  nothing  but  disappointment,  and  find  little  more 
than  fraud  or  self-deception.  Good  mediums  are  rare. 
Unfortunately,  a  vast  amount  of  fraud  is  practised  in 
this  field;  then,  too,  mediums  may  be  honest,  but  mis- 
guided; they  may  give  "messages"  which  they  hon- 
estly believe  to  be  obtained  from  "spirits  of  the  de- 
parted"; whereas,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  have  orig- 
inated only  in  the  depths  of  their  own  subconscious 
minds.  Chance-coincidence,  aided  by  shrewd  common- 
sense  and  a  knowledge  of  human  nature,  have  aided 
much ;  until  we  finally  arrive  at  that  small  residuum  of 
truth,  which  is  so  difficult  to  find,  and  which,  in  the 
majority  of  cases,  is  perhaps  lacking  altogether. 

Striking  evidence  of  survival — anything  like  proof 
that  the  "dead"  still  survive  and  talk  to  us — is  afforded 
by  only  a  very  few  mediums ;  and  it  is  upon  the  utter- 
ances of  these  mediums  that  the  case  rests.  These  are 
the  psychics  who  are  responsible  for  the  conversion 
of  such  eminent  scientists  as  Lodge,  Doyle,  Crookes, 
Wallace,  Myers,  James,  Hyslop,  and  a  host  of  others. 
Any  one  wishing  to  know  the  actual  facts  must  read 
the  reports  based  upon  their  sittings.  But  to  attempt 
to  derive  actual  proof  of  the  kind  from  the  various 
advertising  mediums  which  infest  our  cities  would  lead 
only  to  disappointment ;  and  no  one  desiring  anything 
like  crucial  proof  would  attempt  to  obtain  it  in  this 
manner. 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  109 

I  do  not  say  this  to  discourage  the  reader.  Good 
psychics  are  to  be  found;  and  good  evidence  is  occa- 
sionally obtained  through  private  persons, — sometimes 
through  those  who  have  never  given  a  sitting  before 
in  their  lives.  I  am  only  warning  the  too-credulous 
investigator  away  from  the  quacks  and  frauds  which 
live  among  us ;  and  also  warning  him  that  * '  all  is  not 
gold  that  glitters,"  and  that  much  that  might  seem 
evidence  of  survival  to  the  tyro  turns  out,  upon  exam- 
ination, to  be  nothing  but  subconscious  mental  activity, 
—aided,  perhaps,  by  telepathy  or  traces  of  mind-read- 
ing from  the  sitter's  mind. 

For  instance,  if  a  planchette  board  moves  under  the 
hands  of  the  sitters,  it  is  undoubtedly  unconscious 
muscular  action  which  moves  the  board;  the  sitters 
push  it  themselves.  But  that  is  not  the  point.  Sup- 
pose the  board  spells  out:  "At  this  moment,  your 
sister  has  been  run  mto  and  killed  on  Broadway  and 
Forty-second  street,"  how  is  that  piece  of  knowledge 
derived?  It  is  not  the  movement  of  the  board  which  is 
the  mystery;  but  the  information  which  it  imparts. 
And  there  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that  much  extraor- 
dinary information  of  this  kind,  unknown  to  any  of 
the  sitters  present,  has  been  imparted,  at  spiritualistic 
seances. 

Physical  manifestations — which  are  so  associated  in 
the  public  mind  with  spiritualism — much  to  the  detri- 
ment of  that  misunderstood  subject — can  rarely  or 
never  afford  us  conclusive  evidence  for  survival;  it  is 
only  the  mental  manifestations  which  do  so.  These 
are  obtained  by  trance  utterance,  automatic  writing, 
or  by  direct  vision  of  the  other  world.  And  those 
who  are  not  mediums  themselves  must  depend,  for 


110  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

their  information,  upon  the  statements  of  those  who 
are  thus  endowed. 

1  'But  why,"  you  will  say,  "are  mediums  necessary 
at  all!  Why  cannot  I  myself  obtain  messages  from 
the  great  beyond?  Surely,  if  my  dead  son  would  re- 
turn to  any  one,  it  would  be  to  me,  who  knew  and 
loved  him  so  well — rather  than  through  some  stranger, 
an  illiterate  medium  who  can  hardly  speak  or  write 
the  English  language?"  Well;  the  answer  to  this  is 
simple.  Why  does  electricity  travel  along  a  copper 
wire,  and  not  a  board  fence?  Because  the  copper 
wire  is  a  conductor  of  electricity,  and  the  board  fence 
is  not.  Similarly,  peculiarly  constituted  individuals 
seem  to  possess  that  peculiar  quality  or  make-up  which 
enables  them  to  perceive  or  receive  messages  from 
the  other  world,  while  this  is  lacking  in  most  of  us. 
A  great  medium  is  certainly  as  rare  as  a  great  mathe- 
matician or  a  great  painter  or  a  great  poet.  His  genius 
runs  to  psychical  sensitiveness,  in  the  same  way  that 
the  genius,  in  the  other  cases  mentioned,  ran  to  mathe- 
matics or  poetry  or  art. 

And  the  ability  to  communicate  may  be  just  as  rare. 
Not  every  one  who  wishes  to  send  messages  from  the 
"other  side" — even  assuming  that  he  continues  to 
persist,  and  longs  passionately  to  do  so — can  manage 
to  transmit  his  message  through  a  psychic  or  medium. 
The  ability  to  impart  messages  in  this  manner  is  prob- 
ably just  as  rare  a  gift  as  mediumship  on  our  side; 
and  only  when  two  such  kindred  souls  get  into  touch 
with  one  another,  under  the  most  advantageous  cir- 
cumstances, can  clear  messages  come  to  us  from  the 
great  beyond. 

And  this  explains  to  us  why  it  is  that  more  messages 
have  not  been  sent  than  have  actually  been  received. 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  111 

The  answer  is  just  this :  That  the  ability  to  communi- 
cate may  be  rare, — no  matter  how  much  the  departed 
one  may  wish  to  send  word  to  those  still  in  the  body. 
There  are  doubtless  many  "difficulties  of  communi- 
cation" which  must  be  taken  into  account — and  these 
have  figured  largely  in  discussions  published  in  tech- 
nical psychical  books,  and  in  the  Journals  and  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Societies  for  Psychical  Research.  In- 
tra-Cosmic  difficulties ;  the  difficulty  of  controlling  the 
brain  and  nervous  system  of  the  medium ;  of  influenc- 
ing the  mind  of  the  medium;  of  regulating  and  con- 
trolling the  automatic  flow  of  thought  of  the  communi- 
cator; the  tendency,  apparently,  for  the  communica- 
tor to  lapse  into  a  dreamy,  confused  mental  state,  while 
communicating,  owing  to  the  difficulties  involved — 
these  and  many  more  obstacles  have  been  described 
and  discussed;  and  the  interested  reader  is  referred 
to  the  literature  upon  the  subject  for  the  details.  Suf- 
fice it  to  say  here  tKat  there  are  doubtless  great  diffi- 
culties— so  great,  indeed,  that  many  cannot  overcome 
them  at  all;  and  only  certain  individuals,  under  cer- 
tain conditions,  succeed  in  overcoming  them  complete- 
ly, and  forcing  a  message  through  to  us  in  this  world. 

Again,  it  has  been  stated  that  a  man,  who  is  suddenly 
killed,  experiences  considerable  difficulty  in  gathering 
himself  together,  as  it  were,  mentally,  after  his  arrival 
on  the  "other  side,"  and  that  it  often  takes  him  days 
or  even  weeks — as  measured  by  our  time  here — to 
recover  himself  completely. 

There  is  nothing  irrational  in  all  this :  in  fact,  it  is 
precisely  what  we  should  expect,  judging  by  analogy. 
If  a  man  were  in  a  train  wreck,  and  knocked  uncon- 
scious in  the  accident ;  and  if,  after  a  time,  he  gradual- 
ly regained  consciousness,  things  would  only  return 


112  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

i 

and  assume  their  proper  appearance  gradually  and 

with  great  difficulty.  In  a  letter  which  I  published  in 
the  S.  P.  E.  Journal,  March,  1908,  dealing  with  this 
very  topic,  I  said : — 

".  .  .  After  several  hours,  he  would  return  to  the 
first  dim  consciousness  of  his  surroundings.  Gradu- 
ally he  would  revive.  Objects  would  present  them- 
selves to  his  eyesight  vaguely,  indistinctly;  he  would 
'see  men  as  trees  walking.'  Sounds  would  be  heard, 
but  indistinctly;  there  would  be  a  vague  jumble  of 
noises,  and  no  definite  and  articulate  sounds  would  be 
recognized  at  first,  and  until  consciousness  had  been 
more  fully  restored.  Tactile  sensations,  smell  and 
touch,  would  probably  come  last,  and  be  least  power- 
ful of  all ;  they  would  not  be  even  distinguishable  until 
consciousness  was  almost  completely  normal.  All  in- 
tellectual interests  would  be  abolished,  only  the  most 
loving  and  tender  thoughts  would  be  entertained  or 
tolerable,  and  these  would  be  swallowed  up,  very  large- 
ly, in  the  great  central  fact  that  the  head  and  body 
were  in  great  pain;  that  the  memory  was  impaired, 
and  that  everything  like  normal  thinking  and  a  normal 
grasp  of  the  organism  was  impossible.  Thoughts 
would  be  scattered,  incoherent,  and  only  the  strongest 
stimuli  would  focus  the  attention  on  any  definite  object 
for  longer  than  a  few  moments  at  a  time,  and  perhaps 
even  these  would  fail.  .  .  . 

"Now,  when  we  come  to  die,  the  departure  of  the  soul 
from  the  body  must  be  a  great  strain  and  stress  upon 
the  surviving  consciousness,  and  must  shock  it  tremen- 
dously— just  as  the  accident  shocked  it  in  the  case 
given  above.  Certainly  this  would  be  so  in  the  case  of 
all  sudden  deaths.  Death  must  be  a  tremendous  shock 
to  the  living  consciousness;  the  greatest  shock  that  any 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  113 

given  consciousness  could  receive  in  the  course  of  its 
natural  existence.  But  after  a  time,  the  spirit  is  sup- 
posed to  live  and  get  over  this  initial  shock,  and  to 
regain  its  normal  functions  and  faculties.  In  its  nor- 
mal life,  it  is  then  supposed  to  be  once  more  free 
and  unhampered  by  any  of  the  bodily  conditions  which 
rendered  its  manifestations  on  earth  defective.  .  .  ." 

On  the  physical  side,  however,  it  has  now  been  defi- 
nitely established  that  there  is  practically  no  pain  at 
the  moment  of  death,  under  normal  circumstances. 
The  pains  of  dying  are  the  pains  of  living, — not  of 
death  itself.  Death  is  painless.  I  collected  a  quantity 
of  evidence  upon  this  point,  which  I  published  in  our 
book  Death:  Its  Causes  and  Phenomena  under  the 
sections  devoted  to  "Pain  at  the  Moment  of  Death," 
and  "The  Consciousness  of  Dying";  and  I  am  glad  to 
say  that  Dr.  Eobert  Mac  Kenna,  in  his  recent  and  in- 
teresting volume,  The  Adventure  of  Death,  confirms 
this  view,  and  adduces  considerable  new  evidence  in 
favour  of  this  statement.  The  wound  from  which  a 
soldier  suffers  may  be  painful ;  but  not  death  resulting 
from  that  wound.  i 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  clear  consciousness  may 
be,  and  in  fact  often  is,  maintained  up  to  the  very  mo- 
ment of  death;  the  mind  seems  as  clear  as  ever,  even 
though  the  body  be  shattered  and  torn,  or  wasted  by 
disease.  This,  surely,  is  a  great  proof  of  the  power 
of  spirit  to  manifest  itself  through  matter ;  for  if  con- 
sciousness were  being  actually  obliterated,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  believe  that  it  could  be  conscious  of  its 
own  obliteration.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  were  merely 
being  withdraivn  from  the  body,  the  facts  would  read- 
ily fall  into  place;  and  this  would  also  enable  us  to 
understand  many  puzzling  phenomena  in  connection 


with  epilepsy,  states  of  unconsciousness,  etc.,  which 
are  extremely  difficult  to  account  for,  on  any  material- 
istic basis.* 

The  fear  of  death  should  no  longer  exist,  save  that 
it  represents  a  plunge  into  the  Great  Unknown.  In 
that  sense,  truly,  death  is  a  "Great  Adventure."  But 
can  we  doubt  that  death — the  twin  brother  of  sleep- 
will  prove  all  and  more  than  we  had  ever  hoped  it  to 
be?  We  are  born  into  this  world  helpless,  completely 
dependent  upon  others  for  our  sustenance;  we  find 
those  here  who  are  ready  to  help  us.  May  it  not  be  that 
there  are  those  who  will  likewise  help  us  when  we  too 
cross  the  "Great  Divide,"  and  pass  into  the  next 
sphere  of  activity?  Psychical  science  and  the  doctrine 
of  spiritism  say  that  this  is  so.  Psychical  science  tells 
us  that  there  is  an  ethereal  body — a  sort  of  spiritual 
counterpart  of  the  physical  body,  and  that  this  leaves 
the  gross  body,  at  death,  and  passes  into  the  spirit- 
world  by  a  process  which  has  been  minutely  investi- 
gated. Scenes  of  tremendous  activity  are  being  enact- 
ed, we  are  told,  over  a  battlefield ;  for  thither  the  souls 
of  fallen  heroes  return  to  help  those  who  have  just 
* '  died. ' '  t  Help  and  assistance  are  given  to  newly- 
arrived  spirits  in  this  way. 

But  of  all  this,  of  course,  orthodox  science  knows 
nothing,  any  more  than  orthodox  theology.  To  science, 
death  is  the  end  of  all, — the  end  of  life,  of  mind,  of 
consciousness,  of  the  one  we  knew  and  loved.  To  sci- 
ence, as  understood  today,  life  becomes  extinct,  at  the 
moment  of  death,  just  as  a  candle-flame  becomes  ex- 

*  See  the  article  on  "The  Consciousness  of  Dying,"  by  Dr.  J.  H. 
Hyslop,  in  the  Journal,  S.P.B.,  June,  1898. 

f  See  my  article,  <rWhat  Happens  in  the  Astral  or  Spirit  World 
Over  a  Battlefield,"  in  the  Occult  Review,  July,  1915. 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  115 

tinct  when  the  candle  is  snuffed.  Life  being  supposed- 
ly dependent  upon  chemical  combustion  for  its  energy 
and  existence,  it  of  course  ceases  with  the  cessation  of 
the  activity  which  generated  and  maintained  it !  And 
although  there  are  many  facts,  viewed  only  from  the 
purely  physiological  side,  which  seem  difficult  to  ac- 
count for  on  this  view,  or  are  even  wholly  opposed 
to  it,  as  I  have  elsewhere  endeavoured  to  show,*  this 
is  nevertheless  the  view  all  but  universally  held;  and 
such  a  view,  being  essentially  materialistic,  at  once 
excludes  all  possibility  of  life  existing  apart  from  the 
physical  body  with  which  it  was  formerly  associated. 

In  order  that  the  reader  may  appreciate  more  fully 
the  value  of  the  facts,  and  the  necessity  for  providing 
scientific  evidence  of  the  kind,  it  will  be  necessary, 
just  here,  to  state,  very  briefly,  the  position  of  ma- 
terialism with  regard  to  this  question  of  a  future  life, 
and  the  views  generally  entertained  by  scientific  men 
of  the  present  day  regarding  it. 

Every  one  who  endeavours  to  keep  his  intellectual 
fingers  upon  the  pulse  of  the  times  must  perceive  that 
a  great  wave  of  intellectual  materialism  has  swept  over 
the  land,  and  that  there  is  a  rapidly  increasing  growth 
of  thought  in  that  direction.  Professor  James  H.  Leu- 
ba,  in  his  recent  work,  The  Belief  in  God  and  Immor- 
tality, points  out  the  fact  that  our  Universities  turn 
out  more  and  more  men  who  profess  a  partial  or  com- 
plete disbelief  in  both  these  doctrines — and  we  know 
that  "William  James  once  said  that  religion  proper  de- 
pended upon  two  pillars,  without  which  it  means  noth- 
ing— viz.,  belief  in  a  personal  God  and  the  immortality 
of  the  soul.  Some  of  Professor  Leuba's  figures  are 
thus  very  instructive.  He  shows  us  that,  among  soci- 

*  Vitality,  Fasting  and  Nutrition,  pp.  225-303. 


116  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAK 

ologists,  professors  and  non-professors  together,  about 
46.3  per  cent,  are  believers  in  God  and  53.3  per  cent, 
in  immortality.  In  the  same  way,  among  psycholo- 
gists,'only  about  24.2  per  cent,  believe  in  God  and 
19.8  per  cent,  in  immortality.  Among  physical  scien- 
tists, about  43.9  per  cent,  believe  in  God  and  50.7 
per  cent,  in  immortality;  while,  among  the  biologists, 
only  30.5  per  cent,  believe  in  God  and  37  per  cent,  in 
immortality. 

All  the  more  orthodox  sciences  of  today  are,  of 
course,  materialistic.  No  one  thinks,  now-a-days,  of 
suggesting  that  "God"  has  anything  to  do  with  a 
problem  in  chemistry  or  physics — though  the  inner  es- 
sence of  the  forces  utilized  and  employed  in  these  re- 
actions are  unknown.  Even  in  biology,  where  we 
trench  upon  the  sacred  province  of  life  itself,  the  dis- 
tinct tendency  is  towards  some  possible  chemico-physi- 
cal  explanation — though  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
doctrine  of  "vitalism"  has  of  late  years  also  revived 
and  raised  its  head  threateningly.  Still,  as  before  said, 
the  tendency  of  the  age,  in  all  these  fields,  is  toward  a 
materialistic  scheme  of  things — and  only  philosophers 
and  theologians  are  to  be  found  holding  back,  and 
contending  that  there  may  be  something  else  in  the 
world,  after  all,  beyond  matter  and  energy. 

Psychology  has  likewise  come  to  be  more  and  more 
materialistic  in  tone,  with  the  gradual  acceptance  of 
the  doctrine  that  "the  mind  is  a  function  of  the  brain," 
and  dependent  wholly  upon  it.  Abnormal  psychology 
has  supported  this  doctrine,  and  completely  upset 
Plato's  idea  of  the  essential  unity  of  the  soul.  In 
short,  there  is  no  department  of  science,  as  organized 
today,  which  can  claim  any  knowledge  or  any  proofs 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  117 

of  the  soul's  survival,  while  the  general  tendency  of 
its  teaching  is  all  the  other  way. 

The  simple  argument  of  science  runs  as  follows: 
"Wherever  we  find  life,  it  is  invariably  associated  with 
a  material  (living)  organism,  a  body.  When  that  body 
is  destroyed,  the  life  functioning  within  it  is  destroyed 
also.  It  becomes  extinct,  goes  out  like  the  flame  of  the 
candle,  and  is  no  more.  If  you  choose  to  believe  that 
life  persists  after  the  destruction  of  the  body,  well 
and  good;  but  where  is  your  proof  that  it  does  so? 
Until  such  proof  be  adduced,  I  shall  refuse  to  believe 
that  it  actually  does  so — just  as  I  refuse  to  believe 
anything  else,  in  the  absence  of  facts. ' '  And  this  posi- 
tion is  one  which  no  amount  of  philosophizing  and 
hair-splitting  sophistry  can  overcome,  or  answer. 

How  is  this  position  to  be  refuted?  How  answered? 
Only  by  meeting  the  scientific  man  upon  his  own 
grounds,  and  producing  the  evidence  he  demands.  And 
this  evidence  can  be*  obtained  in  one  way  and  in  one 
way  only — by  the  establishment  of  psychic  phenomena 
which  prove  that  life  and  consciousness  continue  to 
persist  after  the  death  of  the  body.  Could  we  produce 
evidence  that  life  and  mind  actually  do  persist,  in  this 
manner,  we  should  have  answered  the  scientist, — since 
we  should  have  produced  the  facts  he  demands;  and 
at  the  same  time  answered  many  metaphysical  ques- 
tions, depending  for  their  solution  upon  this  funda- 
mental problem. 

And  how  are  we  to  prove  the  persistence  of  this  in- 
dividual being,  after  his  body  is  no  more?  In  life, 
we  never  come  into  touch  with  the  actual  man — only 
with  his  outer  body  or  expression.  We  converse  by 
means  of  signs,  sounds  or  symbols;  and  we  reach 
and  know  one  another  bv  these  and  these  alone.  The 


118  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

actual  man  we  never  know  or  see ;  and  if  it  be  true  that 
"no  man  hath  seen  God,"  it  is  equally  true  that  no  man 
hath  seen  man.  The  invisible  being,  the  mental  or 
spiritual  man,  we  have  never  seen;  we  have  inferred 
him  only  from  his  expressions  and  his  bodily  actions. 

And  when  this  body  is  no  more,  we  can  only  hope  to 
prove  the  reality  and  continued  activity  of  the  spiritual 
being  beyond,  by  obtaining  proof  of  his  personal  iden- 
tity. And  this  is  established  in  much  the  same  manner 
that  anything  else  is  established — namely,  by  isolating 
it  and  proving  its  reality,  of  and  by  itself. 

When  Lord  Eayleigh  discovered  argon  in  the  atmos- 
phere, on  1894,  he  proved  its  existence  by  isolating  it, 
and  showing  that  such  an  element  was  present;  and 
Kamsey  proceeded  in  much  the  same  manner,  when 
he  isolated  and  proved  the  existence  of  four  other 
rare  elements,  hitherto  unsuspected,  in  our  atmos- 
phere. He  proved  that  argon  existed,  i.e.,  by  isolating 
it  and  actually  coming  into  touch  with  it.  In  much  this 
same  way  we  must  prove  the  persistence  of  individual 
consciousness,  or  "personal  identity,"  after  the  death 
of  the  body.  "We  also  must  isolate  it  and  in  some 
manner  get  into  touch  with  it — allowing  it  thus  to 
prove  itself  to  be  the  personality  we  once  knew. 

And  how  is  this  proof  of  personal  identity  to  be 
obtained?  In  much  the  same  manner  that  the  per- 
sonal identity  of  a  friend  is  established  now, — only  in 
a  more  roundabout  manner.  We  cannot  see,  hear  or 
touch  our  correspondent,  when  once  he  has  "  shuffled 
off  this  mortal  coil";  but,  assuming  that  he  exists  at 
all,  he  still  possesses  the  same  "self"  we  knew  here,— 
the  same  personality,  memorie?  and  associations: 
death  changes  nothing,  in  this  respect ;  he  is  essentially 
the  same  man  we  knew  here  on  earth,  only  disembodied. 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  119 

We  must  rid  our  minds,  once  for  all,  of  the  idea 
that  men  and  women  who  have  passed  into  the  great 
beyond  are  changed  in  any  essential  attribute. 
They  are  "just  folks,"  as  they  are  here.  No  worse, 
and  for  a  time  at  least  no  better.  They  gradually 
learn  by  experience,  gravitating  to  the  surroundings 
which  are  in  harmony  with  their  own  mental  make- 
up,— thus  constituting  their  own  Hell  or  Heaven.  This 
is  the  teaching  which  has  come  to  us  from  those  who 
have  "passed  on,"  and  who  assert  that  they  speak 
with  authority.  And,  this  being  so,  we  can  see  that 
the  best,  and  in  fact  the  only  way  in  which  the  personal 
identity  of  the  speaker  or  "communicator"  can  be 
proved,  is  by  obtaining  from  that  personality  certain 
facts  and  details  which  he  alone  knew  when  alive. 
And  the  more  detailed  and  trivial  and  personal  these 
facts  the  better. 

Suppose  you  are  conversing  with  some  one  over  a 
telephone.  You  cannot  see  or  touch  that  individual; 
you  can  only  hear  him — indirectly,  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  the  mechanism  or  instrument  through 
which  you  are  talking.  The  voice  talking  to  you  over 
the  wire  says  he  is  John  Smith.  How  do  you  know 
it  is  John  Smith?  He  says  so!  But  suppose  a  doubt 
arises  in  your  mind  as  to  his  identity ;  you  would  then 
say  to  him :  "How  do  I  know  that  you  are  John  Smith? 
Go  ahead  and  prove  to  me  that  you  are  really  he." 
The  speaker  would  then  be  compelled  to  tell  you  cer- 
tain facts  which  only  John  Smith  would  be  supposed 
to  know — which  only  you  and  he  might  know,  or  per- 
haps he  alone,  and  you  would  have  to  verify  afterward. 
Remarks  about  the  weather,  philosophical  or  moral 
disquisitions  would  not  do;  any  one  might  give  them. 
You  would  want  decisive  and  conclusive  proof  that 


120  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAE 

the  person  claiming  to  be  John  Smith  was  really  there, 
talking;  and  detailed  personal  facts  relating  to  the 
memory  and  personal  identity  of  that  individual  would 
be  the  only  kind  of  evidence  which  would  convince 
you  that  he  was  really  there.  If  detailed  enough  and 
convincing  enough  evidence  of  this  character  were  ob- 
tained, you  would  probably  say:  "Yes,  that's  John 
Smith  all  right!  No  one  else  could  know  that!  He 
is  surely  at  the  other  end  of  this  wire,  talking  to  me ! ' ' 

And  this  is  precisely  the  sort  of  evidence  we  require 
in  our  psychical  investigations.  We  require  trivial, 
personal  details,  relating  to  the  personality  we  once 
knew ;  perhaps  some  sign  or  password ;  and  if  all  this 
were  obtained,  we  should  feel  that  we  really  had  proof 
that  the  person  claiming  to  be  there  was  actually  there, 
— communicating  with  us, — through  the  instrumental- 
ity of  the  psychic  or  medium  we  were  employing  for 
the  experiment. 

If  we  can  prove  the  persistence  of  individual  human 
consciousness  in  this  manner,  then  a  spiritual  world  of 
some  sort  is  established ;  and  communication  with  that 
world  is  likewise  established. 

But  here  we  meet  objections,  and  have  to  face  and 
answer  other  possible  interpretations  of  the  facts 
which  have  been  advanced,  in  order  to  explain  them. 
Does  not  telepathy  account  for  the  facts?  we  are 
asked.  Might  not  the  results  be  due  to  simple  mind- 
reading,  and  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  so-called 
"spirits"  at  all?  We  know  that  thought-transference 
is  a  fact;  and,  that  being  so,  we  might  suppose  that 
the  medium  obtained  the  facts  from  your  mind,  or 
from  some  other  mind,  and  gave  them  forth  as  a  gen- 
uine "spirit  communication."  How  can  we  guard 
against  such  an  interpretation  of  the  case? 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  121 

Indeed,  it  is  often  extremely  hard  to  do  so ;  and  here 
is,  indeed,  the  whole  crux  of  the  problem  of  psychical 
research — the  definite  establishment  of  the  nature  of 
the  intelligence  lying  behind  and  instigating  these  phe- 
nomena. Every  one  who  has  investigated  the  facts 
at  all  now  admits  that  genuine  supernormal  manifes- 
tations take  place;  and  that  the  old  theories  of  "fraud" 
and  "humbug"  no  longer  apply.  No;  supernormal 
phenomena  occur ;  but  the  intelligence  producing  them 
— is  that  the  spirit  it  claims  to  be ;  or  is  it  some  lying 
and  deceiving  intelligence;  or  is  it  the  subconscious- 
ness  of  the  medium  which,  by  the  aid  of  telepathy, 
clairvoyance,  and  other  supernormal  powers,  is  enabled 
to  perform  these  apparent  miracles!  As  before  said, 
that  is  the  problem:  and  a  very  difficult  problem  it 
is  indeed,  in  the  majority  of  cases. 

Various  tests  and  ingenious  experiments  have  been 
made,  in  an  endeavour  to  overcome  these  difficulties, 
and  afford  conclusive  tests  of  spirit-communication. 
The  specific,  detailed  facts  supplied  form  the  material 
for  the  discussion.  Many  of  these  facts  might  have 
been  in  the  conscious  mind  of  the  sitter — hence  they 
might  conceivably  have  been  obtained  telepathically. 
More  of  them  might  have  been  in  his  subconsciousness 
—hence  obtained  in  a  similar  manner,  though  unknown 
to  the  sitter.  But  there  are  many  cases  on  record 
where  facts  have  been  stated  which  the  sitter  certainly 
never  knew  and  never  could  have  known ;  so  that  this 
theory  breaks  down  also.  But  perhaps  some  living 
person  knew  the  facts — and  the  medium's  subliminal 
self,  endowed  with  extraordinary  powers  during  the 
trance  state,  had  the  ability  of  gathering  this  material 
from  any  living  mind,  anywhere  in  the  world,  and  skil- 
fully weaving  it  together  into  a  semblance  of  the  per- 


sonality  we  once  knew?  It  is  conceivable;  but  highly 
improbable;  and  we  have  as  yet  no  scientific  evidence 
that  anything  of  the  sort  can  take  place.  Still,  let 
us  grant  its  possibility.  What  further  tests  can  we 
apply  to  dispose  of  the  sceptic's  objections? 

First  of  aU,  what  are  known  as  "post  mortem  let- 
ters ' '  have  been  devised.  That  is,  an  individual  writes 
a  letter,  telling  no  one  what  it  contains.  He  is,  there- 
fore, the  only  living  human  being  who  knows  its  con- 
tents. This  letter  is  sealed,  and  sent  to  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Eesearch,  where  it  is  deposited  in  the 
safe  deposit  vaults.  After  a  time,  this  man  dies.  Some 
days,  weeks,  or  years  later,  he  apparently  returns 
through  a  medium,  and  states  that  he  is  so-and-so,  the 
writer  of  the  said  letter,  and  that  its  contents  is  so- 
and-so.  The  letter  is  now  opened  and  the  contents 
compared.  If  there  is  identity  or  even  similarity  of 
contents  between  the  messages,  here  is  pretty  good 
evidence  that  the  same  mind  had  written  both — that  the 
same  mind  was  active  still,  and  remembered  the  con- 
tents of  the  letter,  written  before  death. 

Several  such  letters  have  been  written,  and  in  one 
or  two  of  them  there  was  a  striking  similarity  be- 
tween the  two  messages, — though  none  of  them  have 
been  identical,  so  far  as  I  am  aware.  Several  of 
them  have 'failed.  There  are  a  number  of  letters  of 
this  character  on  file  in  the  offices  of  the  Society,  wait- 
ing for  their  writers  to  die!  Within  a  few  years 
from  now,  opportunity  should  be  offered  to  test  a  num- 
ber of  messages  in  this  manner. 

It  will  be  obvious  to  the  reader,  however,  that  even 
this  would  not  be  a  conclusive  test  to  the  sceptic, — for 
he  might  contend  that,  in  such  cases,  the  writer  had 
unconsciously  "passed  on"  the  information,  telepathi- 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  123 

cally,  to  other  minds,  before  he  died;  or  that  the  me- 
dium's subliminal  consciousness  had  in  some  manner 
read  the  letter  by  direct  clairvoyance;  and  hence  this 
would  not  be  conclusive  evidence  of  " spirit  return" — 
though  it  would  certainly  be  very  striking  evidence, 
of  a  kind,  and  evidence  not  to  be  lightly  set  aside. 

Again,  there  is  the  question  of  knowledge  or  scholar- 
ship displayed  by  the  medium,  during  trance,  which 
she  did  not  possess,  and  apparently  could  not  have 
acquired,  in  any  normal  manner.  Many  instances  of 
this  have  been  recorded — one  recently  by  the  Hon. 
G.  W.  Balfour,  in  the  English  Proceedings.  In  this 
case,  the  medium,  while  not  an  illiterate  woman,  was 
certainly  far  from  a  classical  scholar;  she  was,  more- 
over, a  lady  in  private  life,  not  a  professional  medium, 
who  had  no  desire  to  defraud  her  sitters,  even  had 
it  been  possible.  The  "communicators"  were  Dr.  A. 
W.  Verrall  and  Profz  Butcher,  and  the  amount  of  classi- 
cal scholarship  displayed  was  such  that  even  classical 
scholars  themselves  had  great  difficulty  in  verifying 
the  allusions  and  statements  made,  which  were  found 
to  have  a  personal  application  to  the  soi-disant  "com- 
municators." The  evidence  cannot  be  adduced  here, 
or  even  summarized;  but  it  is  very  striking,  and  is 
certainly  one  of  the  most  impressive  pieces  of  evidence 
ever  presented,  in  favour  of  spirit  return. 

Still  another  method,  which  the  psychical  research- 
ers have  applied,  consists  in  the  so-called  "cross  cor- 
respondences." That  is,  to  obtain,  through  different 
and  widely  separated  mediums,  fragments  of  parts 
of  messages,  which  in  themselves  mean  nothing;  but 
which,  pieced  together,  make  a  complete  and  readily- 
understood  whole.  (This  is  to  offset  the  danger  of 
telepathy  between  the  various  mediums  employed.) 


124  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAPt 

Thus,  suppose  one  medium  in  London  wrote  Monday 
and  Thursday;  one  in  Bombay,  India,  Wednesday  and 
Friday;  one  in  Boston,  Tuesday  and  Saturday;  and 
one  in  New  York,  " Sunday — this  completes  the  list; 
see  my  messages  obtained  on  such  and  such  dates 
through  so-and-so" ;  we  should  have  pretty  good  evi- 
dence that  one  single  mind  was  endeavouring  to  enu- 
merate the  days  of  the  week,  and  had  planned  and  car- 
ried out  this  endeavour,  through  various  psychics ;  and 
not  that  the  subconsciousness  of  the  various  mediums 
had  done  it — since  no  one  of  the  messages  itself  made 
sense. 

Now,  no  such  simple  and  direct  message  as  this  has 
been  obtained ;  but  fragmentary  messages  of  just  this 
character  have  been  obtained  through  mediums,  as 
widely  separated  as  I  have  indicated  above,  unknown 
to  one  another;  and  these  messages,  pieced  together, 
have  afforded  us  very  strong  evidence  that  some  com- 
municator was  actually  there,  in  each  instance,  endeav- 
ouring to  give  a  portion  of  a  message, — other  portions 
of  which  had  been  given  elsewhere;  and  further,  that 
this  mind  was  the  same  one  in  every  case;  and  was 
consciously  and  carefully  planning  the  whole  opera- 
tion, as  a  proof  of  his  identity. 

Then  there  is  the  evidence  furnished  by  "appari- 
tions" of  the  dying  man,  or  one  long  dead.  It  has  now 
been  definitely  established,  mathematically,  as  Prof. 
Sidgwick's  Committee  stated,  in  their  Report  on  the 
"Census  of  Hallucinations,"  that:  "between  deaths 
and  apparitions  of  the  dying  person  a  connection  exists 
which  is  not  due  to  chance  alone.  This  we  hold  as  a 
proved  fact."  (Proceedings  S.  P.  E.,  Vol.  X.,  p.  394). 
If  the  coincidence  in  time  be  exact,  or  nearly  so,  we 
might  assume  some  form  of  telepathy  from  the  dying 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  125' 

man ;  and  in  fact  we  actually  do  so ;  but  when  the  ap- 
parition appears  many  hours  or  even  days  or  weeks 
after  the  death,  we  can  hardly  suppose  this  to  be  the 
case.  In  such  instances,  it  would  certainly  appear  that 
something  is  persisting  still,  and  endeavouring  to  man- 
ifest itself  after  this  length  of  time — either  in  some 
locality — this  constituting  a  "haunted  house" — or  to 
some  person.  There  is  abundant  and  good  evidence 
for  cases  of  this  character;  and  such  cases  certainly 
indicate  the  presence  and  continued  activity  of  some 
portion  of  the  departed  person's  spirit.  A  number 
of  cases  of  this  description  are  to  be  found  in  the  pages 
that  follow.* 

Then,  again,  we  have  those  remarkable  cases  of  pre- 
monitions, warnings,  etc.,  which  so  often  seem  to  fore- 
shadow danger.  Such  cases  seem  to  indicate  the  pos- 
session by  man  of  faculties  or  powers  unnecessary  to 
his  present  existence  upon  this  planet;  and  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  how  they  could  have  been  developed  by  or- 
dinary terrene  evolution.  They  point,  rather,  to  the 
possession,  by  man,  of  powers  and  potentialities  which, 
while  useless  from  a  practical  point-of-view  here,  may 
yet  be  of  value  in  some  other  sphere  of  activity — a 
spirit  world,  in  short ;  and  this  is  the  opinion  of  many 
eminent  men  who  have  made  a  special  study  of  these 
supernormal  powers  for  many  years.  Cases  of  this 
character  are  also  to  be  found  in  the  present  book. 

These,  then,  are  some  of  the  methods  by  which  we 
psychical  researchers  have  endeavoured  to  prove  per- 
sonal identity,  and  the  persistence  of  the  individual 
human  soul  after  death.  And  the  evidence  presented 
has  become  increasingly  more  and  more  striking  and 

*  See  also  my  little  book.  True  Ghost  Stories,  for  a  number  of 
cases  of  thie  character. 


126  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

convincing,  of  late  years,  until  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
nearly  every  one  who  has  studied  the  facts  carefully, 
and  at  first  hand,  is  now  convinced  that  spirit  return 
is  a  fact,  and  that  the  thinking  soul  of  man  does  con- 
tinue to  live  after  the  change  called  death. 

This,  if  true,  is  a  striking,  a  momentous,  conclusion. 
For  it  affords  us  actual  proof,  not  only  that  such  a 
world  exists,  hut  that  communication  with  it  is  at 
times  possible;  and  that  it  actually  takes  place.  We 
thus  have  the  proof  desired :  viz.,  scientific  evidence  of 
survival. 

The  cold  logic  here  presented,  while  it  may  strike 
some  readers  as  formal,  impersonal,  and  lacking  in  that 
"warmth  and  intimacy"  which  James  said  belongs 
to  all  thoughts  of  our  own,  nevertheless  presents  the 
facts,  and  the  argument  as  it  would  present  itself  to 
the  scientific  mind, — demanding  strict  proof  and  actual 
evidence.  Science,  which  depoetizes  everything,  and 
feeds  only  on  the  dry  husks  of  facts,  must  have  pabu- 
lum of  its  own  choosing,  in  order  to  be  convinced— 
to  gain  nutriment  from  the  experiences  of  mankind. 
To  such,  this  evidence  must  appeal.  There  are  others, 
on  the  other  hand,  who  will  feel  that  such  strict  and 
stringent  evidence  is  unnecessary;  but  that  the  intui- 
tive faith  and  feeling  of  the  human  race  must  be  suffi- 
cient guarantee  that  a  future  life  exists ;  and  that  man 
survives  and  is  happy  thereafter.  The  opposite,  they 
contend,  is  inconceivable.  Such  persons  are  not  pos- 
sessed of  "the  essentially  scientific  mind" ;  but  they  can 
feel  some  satisfaction,  perhaps,  in  knowing  that  the  lat- 
est researches  and  experiments  in  this  field  have  but 
served  to  confirm  their  intuitive  beliefs;  and  that  the 
further  we  penetrate  this  vast  and  shadowy  realm, 
the  more  certain  do  we  become  that  psychical  phe- 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  127 

nomena  are  real,  and  that  a  spiritual  world  in  very 
truth  exists,  in  which  all  souls  find  rest  and  peace 
and  harmony,  as  well  as  vital,  real  life ;  that  progress 
and  happiness  are  there  eternally,  for  those  who 
achieve  them,  and  that,  even  though  a  soul  be  sent  into 
the  spiritual  world,  all  unprepared,  and  in  the  prime 
of  life — still,  death  for  all  of  us  is  inevitable;  it  will 
come  one  day  sooner  of  later ;  and  it  is  perhaps  better, 
as  Stevenson  has  said,  in  his  Aes  Triplex,  that: 

"Even  if  death  catch  people  like  an  open  pitfall  and 
in  mid-career,  laying  out  vast  projects  and  planning 
monstrous  foundations  flushed  with  hope,  .  .  .  should 
they  be  at  once  tripped  and  silenced,  is  there  not  some- 
thing brave  and  splendid  in  such  a  termination?  and 
does  not  life  go  down  with  a  better  grace,  foaming  in 
full  body  over  a  precipice,  than  miserably  straggling 
to  an  end  in  sandy  deltas!  When  the  Greeks  made 
their  fine  saying  that  those  whom  the  Gods  love  die 
young,  I  cannot  help  believing  that  they  had  this  sort 
of  death  also  in  their  eye.  For  surely,  at  whatever 
age  it  overtakes  a  man,  this  is  to  die  young.  Death 
has  not  been  suffered  to  take  so  much  as  an  illusion 
from  his  heart.  In  the  hot-fit  of  life,  a-tiptoe  on  the 
highest  point  of  being,  he  passes  at  a  bound  onto 
the  other  side.  The  noise  of  the  mallet  and  chisel 
is  scarcely  quenched,  the  trumpets  are  hardly  done 
blowing,  when,  trailing  with  him  clouds  of  glory,  this 
happy-starred,  full-blooded  spirit  shoots  into  the  spir- 
itual world." 


CHAPTER  VI 

PSYCHIC  PHENOMENA  AMIDST   THE   WAEBING  NATIONS 

(A  Brief  Account  of  Psychic  Investigation,  as  Con- 
ducted by  the  Various  Nations  Now  at  War) 

EACH  nation  has  its  own  special  and  particular  meth- 
od of  investigation  of  things  psychic — just  as  it  has  a 
distinct  school  in  art,  in  literature  and  in  orthodox 
science.  Each  one  approaches  these  problems  from  an 
entirely  different  "angle,"  and  studies  the  facts  from 
a  particular  point-of-view.  The  present  war  will  doubt- 
less put  a  stop,  for  the  time  being,  to  much  of  this 
research ;  men  who  would  ordinarily  be  engaged  in  in- 
vestigations of  this  character  are  now  at  the  front, 
fighting  for  their  country  and  their  flag.  The  grim 
realities  of  life  and  the  horrors  of  war  have  eclipsed 
all  else ;  speculative  and  theoretical  work  must  be  put 
aside  for  the  time  being;  metaphysics  finds  no  place 
on  the  battlefield. 

At  the  same  time,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
present  war  will  come  to  an  end  at  some  future  date; 
and  the  occupations  of  life — even  the  most  dilettante 
ones — will  again  find  their  adherents.  A  resume  of 
what  the  various  nations  have  accomplished  in  this 
little-known  field  may  serve  to  bring  the  facts  "up  to 
date,"  and  place  before  the  student  the  evidence  as 
it  stands  today.  One  other  factor  must  not  be  lost 
sight  of,  however,  and  that  is  that  psychic  research 

128 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  129 

is  the  only  science  which  attempts  to  answer  the  ques- 
tion: What  is  man's  future?  Evolution  studies  his 
past;  the  more  orthodox  sciences  study  his  present — 
man  himself  and  his  environment ;  psychic  research  at- 
tempts to  investigate  his  future.  And  to  many  of  us 
there  is  no  reason  why  this  inquiry  cannot  be  con- 
ducted in  precisely  the  same  scientific  spirit  as  per- 
tains in  all  other  branches  of  knowledge.  It  is  no 
more  ''superstitious"  than  they — rightly  understood. 

FRANCE. — French  investigators  have  specialized,  for 
the  most  part,  in  the  phenomena  of  so-called  "mag- 
netism." I  do  not  mean  by  this  physical  magnetism — 
related  to  electricity — but  "human  magnetism" — 
thought  to  be  present  in  the  human  body,  and  capable 
of  being  radiated  from  it,  into  space,  upon  occasion. 
This  is  the  "Magnetic  School,"  finding  its  centre  in 
the  "Magnetic  Society"  of  France.  It  does  not  pro- 
ceed along  the  lines,  or  employ  the  psychological  meth- 
ods, of  either  the  English  or  American  Societies ;  nor 
the  physical  and  physiological  methods  employed  by 
the  Italian  investigators  (to  be  detailed  later).  Its 
method  of  approach  is  somewhat  as  follows : — 

These  investigators  believe  that  the  majority  of  so- 
called  "psychic  phenomena"  can  be  explained  by  pow- 
ers hidden  in  man — the  supernormal  use  of  the  Will, 
and  the  existence  and  use  of  this  magnetic  "fluid,"  re- 
sembling life  or  vitality.  A  combination  of  these  two 
explains  the  facts.  (It  is  interesting,  and  also  curious, 
to  note  that  these  were  the  two  factors  employed  by 
the  mediaeval  magicians,  and  also  by  "witches,"  and 
said  to  lie  at  the  basis  of  their  manifestations.)  But 
the  modern  school  has  established  its  belief  upon  strict- 
ly scientific  principles.  Thus,  instruments  have  been 
devised  which  automatically  check  the  "  externaliza- 


130  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

tion"  of  this  force,  when  directed  by  the  will;  experi- 
ments have  been  conducted  in  the  *  *  externalization  of 
sensibility,"  as  it  is  called — in  which  the  power  of  feel- 
ing is  projected  beyond  the  normal  limits  of  the  body, 
etc.  Healing  is  also  accomplished  by  these  means. 
Photographic  plates  have  been  impressed  by  these 
psychic  emanations;  sensitive  chemical  and  electri- 
cal instruments  have  been  constructed  to  catch  and 
detect  them,  etc.  In  fact,  all  the  methods  of  modern 
science  have  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  problem, 
in  the  attempt  to  prove  scientifically  the  real  existence 
of  this  "fluid,"  and  its  power  to  affect  material  ob- 
jects. This — and  the  application  of  delicate  instru- 
ments— is  the  chief  distinctive  work  of  note  of  the 
French  investigators. 

Upon  the  psychological  side,  they  have  specialized 
in  the  study  of  the  "collective  mind" — the  mentality 
which  is  (apparently)  formed  and  manifested  at  sean- 
ces. The  majority  of  the  French  observers  do  not  be- 
lieve that  the  intelligence  which  manifests  at  the  ordi- 
nary spiritistic  seance  is  the  spirit  of  a  departed  per- 
son. They  believe,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  is  a  sort  of 
collective  composite  mentality,  formed  from  the  minds 
of  those  present,  and  consolidated  into  a  single  Unit, 
which  represents  a  Mind  of  its  own.  It  is  well  known 
that  there  is  a  special  "mind  of  the  crowd."  They 
believe  that  this  is  a  real  thing,  and  that,  on  a  lesser 
scale,  the  same  Thing  is  created  at  seances.  The  study 
of  how  this  mind  is  generated,  in  what  it  consists,  how 
it  manifests  itself,  etc. — points  too  technical  for  discus- 
sion here — have  occupied  the  French  observers  for 
some  years. 

GERMANY. — Psychic  investigation  is  less  general  in 
Germany  than  France, — owing  doubtless  to  the  ortho- 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  131 

dox  or  materialistic  trend  of  the  people.  Still,  there 
is  much  to  interest  in  various  fields.  The  famous 
* '  thinking  horses ' '  of  Elberf eld  are,  of  course,  German, 
— Elberfeld  being  quite  close  to  the  Belgian  border. 
These  horses — which  are  able  to  read,  write  and  cal- 
culate complicated  mathematical  problems — are  so 
well-known  that  I  shall  not  do  more  than  mention  them 
here.  Even  more  extraordinary  is  the  famous  edu- 
cated dog  Eolf,  of  Mannheim,  Bavaria, — capable  of 
figuring,  receiving  lessons  in  geography,  of  writing 
letters  on  his  own  initiative,  and  performing  other 
actions  which  appear  even  more  incredible!  I  shall 
not  dwell  upon  the  facts  of  this  case  here,  since  they 
are  so  remarkable  they  cannot  call  for  belief,  unless 
the  facts  are  given  in  detail.  I  have  mentioned  them 
only  to  show  that  in  Germany  ''animal  experimenta- 
tion" of  this  character  occupies  a  large  share  of  the 
student's  attention. 

Then,  too, '  *  dowsing, '  '  or  the  finding  of  underground 
water  by  means  of  a  twig  held  in  the  hand  of  the 
water-finder,  has  been  studied  at  great  length  by  vari- 
ous scientific  committees,  and  the  conclusion  arrived 
at  that  the  main  facts  are  undoubted.  "Water  can  be 
located  in  this  way  when  every  other  means  has  failed. 
The  committee,  when  last  heard  from,  was  concen- 
trating its  attention  upon  the  actual  underlying  causes 
involved,  in  the  hope  of  discovering  them.  Whether 
the  explanation  be  physical,  physiological  or  psycho- 
logical remains  to  be  seen.  Opinions  differ! 

It  should  be  noted,  in  this  connection,  however,  that 
the  British  army  had  occasion  to  test  the  practical 
value  of  "dowsing"  in  their  Gallipoli  campaign.  Here, 
water  being  so  precious,  the  finding  of  it  by  this  means 
was  a  Godsend  to  the  troops ;  in  fact,  it  might  almost 


132  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

be  said  that,  had  it  not  been  for  this,  the  Suvla  Bay 
expedition  would  have  been  impossible.  Mr.  Ralph 
Shirley,  the  able  editor  of  the  Occult  Review,  in  an 
editorial,  published  August,  1916,  says  regarding  this : 
"It  will  interest  the  British  public  in  especial  to 
know  that  the  situation  at  Suvla  Bay  was  saved  at  a 
very  critical  moment  by  the  services  of  Sapper  Kelly, 
of  the  3rd  Light  Horse  Brigade,  Australian  Expedi- 
tionary Force,  in  his  capacity  of  water-diviner.  The 
absence  of  water  was  one  of  the  greatest  difficulties 
in  connection  with  the  holding  of  the  position  on  the 
Gallipoli  Peninsula.  The  Turks,  in  fact,  boasted  that 
it  was  untenable  by  a  large  body  of  troops  for  this 
very  reason.  The  arrangements  accordingly  made  by 
the  authorities  for  water  distribution  were  on  a  vast 
scale.  It  was  actually  brought  from  Malta,  being  towed 
in  huge  barges  to  the  improvised  piers  at  Anzac.  On 
the  beach  a  large  steam-pumping  plant  was  erected, 
which  pumped  the  water  from  the  barges  to  large  tanks 
on  both  the  right  and  the  left  of  the  Anzac  position. 
The  difficulties  of  supplying  water  under  these  condi- 
tions were  grave  in  the  extreme,  especially  as  the  heat 
was  intense,  and  the  least  hitch  in  the  organization  led 
to  a  shortage  of  the  supply.  Matters  had  become 
very  serious,  and  a  complete  breakdown  was  threat- 
ened, when  the  attention  of  the  generals  in  command 
was  drawn  to  Sapper  Kelly's  reputation  as  a  dowser. 
He  was  sent  to  headquarters,  and  asked  to  endeavour 
to  discover  if  there  were  any  indications  of  under- 
ground water  in  the  area.  Early  next  morning  Kelly 
'started  on  his  investigations,  and  very  soon  located 
water  within  a  hundred  yards  of  Divisional  Headquar- 
ters. On  being  opened  up  by  the  engineers,  the  well 
was  found  to  give  a  volume  of  over  2,000  gallons  of 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  133 

pure  cold  artesian  water  per  hour.  Two  other  wells 
were  subsequently  opened-up  in  the  immediate  vicin- 
ity. By  six  o'clock  that  evening  every  man  in  the 
section  had  his  water-bottle  filled,  and  within  a  week 
Kelly  had  located  the  positions  of  over  thirty-two  wells, 
on  which  pumps  were  subsequently  erected.  The  water 
supply  obtained  in  consequence  was  calculated  to  be 
sufficient  for  100,000  men  with  one  gallon  per  day 
per  man.  It  must  be  remembered  that  not  only  did 
the  troops  require  water,  but  there  were  also  thou- 
sands of  mules  which  also  required  watering,  and  that 
one  mule  will  drink  as  much  water  as  twenty  men. 
The  instrument  used  by  Sapper  Kelly  was  a  small 
piece  of  copper  which  he  held  in  his  hands  and  by 
which  he  ascertained  the  depths  at  which  the  water 
was  to  be  found  and  also  whether  it  was  a  "pocket"  of 
water,  a  spring,  or  an  underground  river.  Previous 
to  these  experiment^  the  engineers  in  their  endeavours 
to  find  water  had  sunk  shafts  within  fifty  yards  of 
the  spot  indicated  by  Kelly  and  had  gone  consider- 
ably lower  in  the  earth  than  he  found  necessary,  but 
without  success." 

But  the  most  dramatic  and  extraordinary  German 
evidence  that  has  come  before  psychic  students  for 
many  a  long  day  hails  from  Munich.  Here  Baron  von 
Schrenck-Notzing,  who  is  also  a  physician — well-known 
for  his  writings  on  hypnotism  and  abnormal  psychol- 
ogy— has  brought  forward  evidence  of  the  most  ex- 
traordinary and  striking  character.  For  four  years 
past  he  had  carried  on  a  systematic  investigation  of 
so-called  "materialization"  phenomena.  He  has  pub- 
lished an  enormous  work  on  the  subject,  which  has  cre- 
ated a  stir  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land.  His  "medium"  apparently  succeeded  in  produc- 


134  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

ing,  under  the  most  stringent  conditions,  forms,  or 
parts  of  forms,  which  have  been  photographed,  and 
even  moving  pictures  taken  of  their  gradual  develop- 
ment and  disappearance !  Cameras  were  placed  inside 
and  outside  the  cabinet ;  the  light  was  good ;  the  sean- 
ces were  held  in  Dr.  Schrenck-Notzing's  own  house  or 
laboratory;  the  medium  was  medically  searched  and 
examined  before  and  after  each  seance.  Occasionally 
the  medium  gave  the  seance  completely  nude — as  a 
test — to  prove  that  nothing  was  concealed  about  her. 
Nevertheless  complete  forms  issued  from  the  cabinet, 
and  a  peculiar  slimy,  cold  substance,  which  Dr. 
Schrenck-Notzing  termed  "teleplasm"  issued  from  the 
medium's  body,  and  was  seen  and  felt  by  him.  Nat- 
urally, the  publication  of  such  facts  led  to  a  bitter 
controversy;  and  this  was  still  going  on  when  the  war 
broke  out,  and  effectually  ended  it  for  the  time  being. 

ATJSTEIA. — Southern  Austria  and  the  North  Balkan 
States  constitute,  of  course,  the  home  of  the  "Vam- 
pire. ' '  The  peasants  of  these  countries  still  implicitly 
believe  in  the  reality  of  such  gruesome  beings,  which 
leave  their  newly-made  graves,  to  come  and  suck  the 
life-blood  of  those  still  living.  Terrible  stories  are 
told  of  these  creatures — as  also  of  werwolves,  black 
magicians,  etc.!  It  is  earnestly  to  be  hoped  that, 
some  day,  a  committee  of  psychic  investigators  may 
be  appointed,  which  will  thoroughly  investigate  these 
stories,  and  ascertain  what  truth — if  any — there  be  in 
such  narratives. 

The  real  scientific  work  in  this  field,  which  Austria 
contributed,  has  been  the  interpretation  of  dreams, 
and  the  exploration  of  the  subconscious  mind,  as  elab- 
orated by  Sigmund  Freud,  of  Vienna.  He  argued,  in 
his  remarkable  work,  that  most  dreams  represent  a 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  135 

suppressed  wish,  and  that  many  of  them  have  a  sexual 
significance.  He  has  also  contributed  much  to  the 
systematic  symbolic  interpretation  of  dreams.  While 
much  of  his  work  is  disputed  and  suggests  an  attempt 
to  prove  a  particular  hypothesis  rather  than  to  ascer- 
tain the  true  bearing  of  the  evidence,  some  of  it  is 
doubtless  sound. 

RUSSIA. — In  certain  educated  circles  in  Eussia, '  *  spir- 
itualistic phenomena"  have  been  very  carefully  and 
scientifically  studied.  Count  Alexander  Aksakof  spent 
practically  his  whole  life  on  this  subject,  and  pub- 
lished an  enormous  work,  in  two  volumes,  Animism 
and  Spiritism,  which  may  well  be  considered  a  classic. 
Count  Solovovo — Hon.  Secretary  of  the  English  Soci- 
ety for  Russia — has  also  contributed  a  number  of  care- 
ful studies,  and  in  particular  carried  out  some  very 
curious  experiments  with  a  medium  (now  dead)  named 
Sambour,  who  had  the  power  (apparently)  of  passing 
"matter  through  matter"  in  a  mysterious  way!  For 
instance,  the  sitter  and  the  medium  would  take  one 
another's  hands;  they  would  not  let  go  for  a  second. 
In  the  dark,  the  medium  would  then  succeed  in  * ( thread- 
ing" a  chair  on  to  the  arms  of  the  sitter — that  is,  in 
passing  the  chair  on  to  the  extended  arm — as  one 
would  normally  hang  it  on  a  peg.  The  hole  in  the 
chair  was  too  small  for  the  medium's  body  to  pass 
through;  the  hands  were  never  released;  the  lights 
were  only  turned  down  after  the  hands  were  so  held. 
Short  of  the  actual  miracle,  one  can  only  assume  some 
exceedingly  clever  trick,  plus  much  cleverness  of  de- 
ception ;  but  though  this  medium  was  tested  for  a  num- 
ber of  consecutive  weeks,  his  secret  was  never  discov- 
ered. 

Far  and  away  the  most  important  work  in  this  field 


of  psychic  investigation,  however,  conies  to  us  from 
Russian  Poland,  where  Dr.  Ochorowicz  had  been  ex- 
perimenting for  a  number  of  years  with  a  young  me- 
dium, named  Mile.  Tomczyk,  who  passes  into  trance, 
and  in  that  state  has  the  power,  apparently,  of  mov- 
ing solid  objects  without  contact;  of  impressing  pho- 
tographic plates  merely  by  placing  her  hands  upon 
them ;  of  causing  her  thoughts  to  be  photographed ;  of 
projecting  her  "etheric  body,"  so  that  it  can  be  pho- 
tographed, and  even  more  marvellous  things.  These 
phenomena,  many  of  them,  seem  well  established— 
as  Dr.  Ochorowicz  is  known,  not  only  as  a  careful 
and  cautious  student,  but  one  who  has  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  difficulties  involved,  and  has  spent 
a  number  of  years  experimenting  with  the  same  sub- 
ject. Two  committees  of  Polish  scientists  investigated 
and  endorsed  his  facts.  (Some  of  these  I  have  re- 
viewed and  explained  in  my  Problems  of  Psychical  Re- 
search, pp.  53-66.) 

GKEAT  BRITAIN. — The  work  of  the  English  Society 
for  Psychical  Research  is  well-known  the  world  over. 
Its  members  include  as  many  eminent  scientists  as  are 
to  be  found  in  any  similar  body  in  the  world;  its  in- 
vestigations are  always  made  with  extreme  caution; 
its  treatment  of  the  subject-matter  is  eminently  sane. 
The  chief  interest  of  this  Society,  for  a  number  of 
years  past,  has  been  the  detailed  psychological  study 
of  the  automatic  writing  of  certain  mediums — such  as 
Mrs.  Piper,  Mrs.  Holland,  Mrs.  Forbes,  etc. — who  have 
apparently  produced  striking  evidence  of  the  influ- 
ence of  spirits  of  the  departed.  Direct  personal  evi- 
dence is  studied;  also  what  has  come  to  be  known 
as  "cross-correspondences" — that  is,  the  experimental 
verification  of  the  same  facts  through  two  or  more 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  137 

mediums;  independent  receipt  of  information  through 
several  mediums,  unknown  to  one  another ;  securing  of 
literary  and  scientific  material  beyond  the  conscious 
powers  of  the  medium ;  obtaining  the  contents  of  sealed 
letters,  written  by  members  before  death,  and  only 
opened  after  their  contents  has  been  given  through 
the  automatic  writing,  etc.  It  will  be  seen  at  once 
that  their  work  has  been  almost  entirely  along  the 
psychological — rather  than  the  physiological  or  physi- 
cal— lines;  they  have  dealt  mainly  with  the  mental 
problems,  and  chiefly  with  the  evidence  for  survival. 
This  has  received  very  adequate,  yet  cautious,  treat- 
ment. In  addition,  dreams,  apparitions,  haunted 
houses,  premonitions  and  similar  phenomena  are  con- 
stantly being  examined.  The  English  Society  has  been 
unfortunate  in  its  investigations  of  the  "physical  phe- 
nomena"; and  recent  experiments  have  again  proved 
inconclusive.  Those  who  are  interested  in  the  mental 
manifestations — and*  particularly  in  what  evidence 
there  may  be  of  a  scientific  character  for  the  persis- 
tence of  the  human  soul  after  bodily  death — will  find 
this  problem  treated  more  fully  by  the  British  Society 
than  anywhere  else.  The  evidence  is,  of  course,  far  too 
lengthy  and  prolix  to  even  summarize  here. 

ITALY. — Italy,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  breed 
physical  mediums ;  they  appear  indigenous  to  the  soil ! 
The  famous  Eusapia  Palladino  comes  from  Naples; 
Sordi,  Carancici,  Politi,  and  other  "physical"  mediums 
all  hail  from  Italian  shores.  The  work  in  this  country 
has  naturally  turned  very  largely  upon  the  detailed 
study  of  these  mediums — mainly  from  the  physical  and 
clinical  points-of-view.  Thus,  Lombroso  and  Morselli, 
—the  eminent  psychiatrist  of  Genoa, — both  studied  me- 
diumship  from  its  physiological  and  pathological  sides. 


138  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

After  establishing  the  fact  that  certain  persons  can 
produce  what  appear  to  be  physical  miracles,  they 
studied  the  psychic  medically,  during,  before  and  after 
the  production  of  these  phenomena.  In  this  way, 
many  remarkably  interesting  facts  have  been  brought 
to  light.  Thus,  we  have  learned  (what  we  should  have 
guessed  already)  that  practically  all  mediums  suffer 
from  mental  dissociation;  many  of  them  are  hysteri- 
cals ;  some  present  remarkable  pathological  symptoms. 
All  this,  of  course,  does  not  affect  their  mediumship— 
save  that  it  shows  the  connection  between  abnormal 
and  supernormal  phenomena  (a  point  which  I  person- 
ally have  always  contended  for  very  strongly).  Out- 
side of  Lombroso,  practically  none  of  the  Italian  group 
of  observers  are  spiritists ;  they  believe,  rather,  in  the 
supernormal  powers  of  the  subconscious,  plus  the  abil- 
ity of  the  medium  to  "externalize"  a  semi-fluid  sub- 
stance from  the  body,  and  mould  this  in  space,  to  re- 
semble a  human  figure.  In  this  way  they  attempt  to 
account  for  "materializations."  Psychical  research, 
in  Italy,  is  almost  entirely  devoted  to  the  physical 
phenomena. 

BELGIUM. — Belgium  has  produced  few  scientific  in- 
vestigators. A  remarkable  series  of  experiments  was 
made  some  years  ago,  in  a  private  family,  and  the 
results  published.  They  dealt  with  the  phenomena  of 
so-called  "materialization,"  or  the  creation  of  phan- 
tom forms.  The  sitters  were  not  professional  me- 
diums, in  any  sense  of  the  word.  Professor  Delboauf, 
of  Liege,  devoted  many  years  to  this  subject,  and 
studied  induced  hallucinations,  hypnotic  phenomena, 
the  cure  of  warts  by  suggestion,  the  appreciation  of 
time  by  somnambulists,  etc.  Maurice  Maeterlinck  is 
also  a  close  and  ardent  student  of  these  questions, — 


PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  139 

as  his  recent  books  on  Death,  The  Unknown  Guest, 
The  Light  Beyond,  etc.,  show. 

HOLLAND. — Dr.  Frederick  van  Eeden,  founder  of  the 
first  hypnotic  clinic  in  that  country,  is  an  active  worker 
in  these  problems,  and  has  made  the  name  of  Holland 
famous  by  his  original  researches.  For  fifteen  years 
he  has  experimented  with  his  own  dreams,  and  ap- 
parently succeeded,  finally,  in  freeing  his  "dream- 
body"  from  his  physical  body,  during  sleep,  and  "pro- 
jecting" it — causing  it  to  take  journeys  in  space  on 
its  own  account,  and  see  and  hear  things  actually 
transpiring  at  a  distance.  His  paper,  published  in  the 
Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  is 
extremely  interesting  and  profoundly  suggestive.  He 
believes  that  we  can  in  time  gain  such  power  of  control 
over  this  body  that  it  can  affect  other  people,  move 
material  objects,  etc.  If  this  be  true,  it  will,  of  course, 
cause  a  profound  change  not  only  in  our  belief  as  to 
the  inseparable  tie  between  body  and  mind,  but  also  as 
to  the  causes  of  dreams. 

In  Holland,  too,  Drs.  Malta  and  Zaalberg  van  Zelst, 
two  Dutch  physicists,  have  contrived  several  delicate 
instruments  by  whose  aid,  they  believe,  they  are  able 
to  get  into  direct  communication  with  the  spirits  of 
the  departed  without  the  aid  of  a  "medium"  at  all; 
that  is,  the  instrument  itself  will  act  as  a  medium — an 
intermediary — and  render  direct  instrumental  com- 
munication possible.  They  are  well-known  as  careful 
physicists,  and  their  arguments  are  certainly  plausible. 

AMERICA. — The  American  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search, of  which  Dr.  James  H.  Hyslop  is  the  Secre- 
tary, and  with  which  I  was  actively  associated  during 
the  first  two  years  of  its  organization,  has  published 
a  great  variety  of  valuable  material,  dealing  with 


140  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

physical,  mental  and  spiritistic  phenomena.  The  Pro- 
ceedings and  Journals  of  the  Society,  issued  each  year, 
constitute  a  veritable  mine  of  psychical  material  of 
high  quality,  though  the  publications  are  more  spirit- 
istic in  tone  than  the  English  Society's  Proceedings, 
owing  to  the  convictions  of  the  Editor  in  this  direction. 
Mediumistic  phenomena  occupy  a  large  part  of  the 
Society's  publications — unfortunately,  confined  too 
largely  to  one  medium.  The  collective  value  of  the 
material  is,  however,  undoubted. 

In  Canada,  there  is  a  Psychical  Research  Society,  in 
Toronto,  of  which  Dr.  John  King  is  the  President.  No 
official  publications  have  been  issued,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,  detailing  the  activities  of  this  body. 

It  is  unfortunate,  to  say  the  least,  that  the  present 
war  will  put  an  effective  stop  to  this  investigation— 
at  least  for  the  time  being — just  when  conclusions 
were  being  reached  and  facts  of  far-reaching  signifi- 
cance obtained.  It  is  earnestly  to  be  hoped  that,  after 
the  present  war  has  been  concluded,  the  research  will 
be  continued  with  ever-increasing  enthusiasm ;  and  that 
a  mass  of  valuable  data  will  have  been  gathered,  as  the 
result  of  careful  psychological  investigations  conduct- 
ed at  the  front  by  competent  investigators. 


CHAPTER  VII 

PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS 

SOON  after  the  commencement  of  the  Great  War,  a 
number  of  European  journals  published  accounts  of 
prophecies,  which  were  said  to  have  been  made,  all 
the  way  from  three  days  to  three  hundred  years  be- 
fore,— showing,  so  it  was  claimed,  that  the  war  had 
been  foreseen  with  exactitude  by  numerous  seers,  at 
various  times  in  .the  past ;  and  that  the  present  war 
had  been  foretold  in  detail  by  them.  It  must  be  admit- 
ted, at  once,  that  the  majority  of  these  prophecies  are 
either  totally  unconvincing,  or  were  afterwards  shown 
to  be  fraudulent,  or  of  so  general  a  character  that  they 
are  valueless  from  the  evidential  point-of-view.  The 
prophecy  of  ''Brother  Johannes,"  e.g.,  which  cre- 
ated quite  a  stir  at  the  time  of  its  publication,  has 
since  been  shown  to  be  a  forgery;  while  those  con- 
tained in  the  various  astrological  almanacs  are  ex- 
tremely vague,  and  might  be  stretched  to  cover  almost 
any  event  of  unusual  magnitude.  After  the  war  had 
started,  many  astoundingly  accurate  ''prophecies" 
were  of  course  forthcoming;  but  it  is  unfortunate,  to 
say  the  least,  that  none  of  these  should  have  been 
produced  before  its  outbreak.  The  interested  reader 
is  referred  to  a  little  book  entitled  Prophecies  and 
Omens  of  the  Great  War,  compiled  by  Mr.  Ralph  Shir- 
ley, editor  of  the  Occult  Review,  for  the  most  striking 
cases  of  the  kind  for  which  reasonable  testimony  has 

141 


142  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

been  adduced;  and  to  Herbert  Thurston's  book  The 
War  and  the  Prophets,  for  a  negative  criticism  of 
these  cases.  Professor  F.  C.  S.  Schiller  has  also  con- 
tributed a  paper  to  the  Journal  of  the  English  Society 
for  Psychical  Eesearch,  War  Prophecies,  in  which 
much  the  same  criticism  of  these  cases  is  adduced 
(June,  1916). 

There  are,  however,  a  few  cases  which  deserve  spe- 
cial mention,  either  because  of  their  detail,  or  because 
of  the  authority  of  those  who  are  responsible  for 
them,  or  because  of  the  fact  they  were  not  only  written 
down,  but  seen  and  testified  to,  by  independent  wit- 
nesses, before  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  One  of  the 
best  of  these,  perhaps,  is  the  following,  which  was 
obtained  through  Professor  Charles  Richet,  one  of  the 
most  eminent  physiologists  of  France,  and  a  savant  of 
indisputable  authority.  Here  are  the  details: — 

On  June  3d,  1914,  at  a  time  when  Europe  was  undis- 
turbed by  any  thought  of  the  terrible  war  avalanche 
which  was  soon  to  burst  upon  her,  Professor  Charles 
Richet  handed  to  a  M.  de  Vesme  a  manuscript  written 
by  Dr.  Amedee  Tardieu,  in  which  the  latter  gave  par- 
ticulars of  a  prophecy  made  by  a  friend  of  his,  a  M. 
Leon  Sonrel,  as  far  back  as  1870,  that  war  would  break 
out  in  France  in  1914. 

M.  Sonrel  had  made  other  prophecies  of  future 
events,  all  of  which  had  been  fulfilled,  and  a  curious 
feature  about  them  was  that  his  predictions  in  regard 
to  national  matters  synchronized  with  many  other  pre- 
dictions he  had  made  in  regard  to  his  own  private 
life  and  that  of  his  friends.  Dr.  Tardieu  writes  that 
he  was  walking  with  Leon  Sonrel  in  the  Luxembourg 
Gardens,  Paris,  when  the  latter  seemed  to  have  a  kind 
of  prophetic  vision.  In  this  he  saw  clearly  certain  events 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      143 

in  regard  to  the  war  of  1870,  all  of  which  came  to  pass 
in  due  course,  including  the  French  defeat  at  Sedan, 
the  siege  of  Paris  and  the  revolution.  The  visionary 
predicted  at  the  same  time  his  own  early  death,  and 
that  his  wife  would  give  birth  to  a  posthumous  child. 

Added  to  this,  he  predicted  many  events  in  Dr. 
Tardieu's  life  which  all  in  due  course  came  to  pass. 
He  announced  that  France  would  be  at  war  once  more, 
soon  after  certain  events  in  Dr.  Tardieu's  life  were 
fulfilled.  The  precise  nature  of  these  private  events 
Dr.  Tardieu  did  not  publish,  but  he  announced  to  his 
friends  that  war  was  due  before  September,  1914, 
because  the  events  of  his  own  life,  with  which  the 
prediction  synchronized,  were  fulfilled  in  May  of  that 
year.  All  Dr.  Tardieu's  friends  bear  witness  of  the 
latter 's  prediction  in  regard  to  the  war. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection  that  Son- 
rel  predicted  that  the  war  of  1914  would  be  a  victorious 
one  for  France.  To  quote  the  words  of  the  prophet: 

11  France  is  saved,  she  extends  to  the  Rhine.  0  my 
beloved  country,  you  are  triumphant — you  are  Queen 
of  the  nations!" 

The  fact  that  attention  was  drawn  to  this  prophecy 
two  months  before  the  beginning  of  the  war  makes  it 
worthy  of  special  notice. 

However  vague  and  indefinite  its  wording  may  be, 
Dr.  Tardieu  evidently  had  no  difficulty  in  interpreting 
its  full  meaning,  enlightened  as  he  was  by  the  fulfilled 
predictions  relating  to  himself,  upon  which  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  prophecy  in  regard  to  France  as  a  na- 
tion was  made  to  depend. 

In  the  Occult  Review  for  December,  1915,  Mr.  Ralph 
Shirley  gives  the  following  case,  which  must  be  ac- 
knowledged to  have  some  interest,  were  it  only  for 


144  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

the  fact  that  it  embodies  the  supposed  date  for  the 
ending  of  the  war.  Mr.  Shirley  says: 

"In  writing  of  predictions  that  are  in  process  of 
fulfillment,  or  may  possibly  yet  be  fulfilled,  I  should 
like  here  to  quote  the  Model's  Prophecy,  the  story 
of  the  Breton  \rho  forecasted  his  own  fate.  This  has 
not  yet  appeared,  and  I  think  deserves  mention,  though 
I  am  not  in  a  position  to  vouch  for  its  bona  fides.  It 
appeared  in  the  French  newspapers  some  considerable 
time  ago,  in  the  early  part  of  the  war,  and  runs  as 
follows : — 

"For  several  years  a  well-known  French  painter 
of  battles  and  military  life  whose  name  is  not  given, 
but  whom  it  should  surely  be  possible  to  identify, 
employed  a  native  of  Brittany  for  his  model.  One 
day  in  July,  1914,  about  a  fortnight  before  the  out- 
break of  the  war,  the  model,  who  was  of  a  psychic 
temperament,  arrived  at  the  artist's  studio  in  a  very 
dejected  state  of  mind.  On  the  painter  inquiring  what 
it  was  that  troubled  him,  he  announced  that  the  country 
was  on  the  brink  of  war.  The  painter  pooh-poohed  his 
fears  and  expressed  a  desire  to  start  on  his  work.  But 
his  model  was  not  to  be  turned  from  his  fateful  prog- 
nostication. 'War,'  he  said,  'will  be  declared  on 
August  2.'  The  artist  promptly  retorted  that  if  his 
model  knew  when  the  war  would  begin  he  was  also 
probably  aware  of  the  date  on  which  it  would  end. 
Yes,  was  the  reply,  I  know  this  too,  the  war  will  end  on 
May  22.  The  artist  hereupon  invited  him  to  come  and 
see  him  on  May  23  and  share  a  bottle  of  wine  in  cele- 
bration of  the  fulfillment  of  his  prediction.  'Impos- 
sible!' replied  the  other,  'I  could  not  come.  I  shall 
be  killed  in  the  second  half  of  November.*  The  story 
goes  on  to  state  that  the  model  fell  on  the  battlefield 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      145 

on  November  27.  No  mention,  it  may  be  observed,  was 
made  of  the  year,  but  only  of  the  day  and  month  on 
which  the  war  was  to  terminate,  and  apparently  the 
artist  forgot  to  inquire.  ..." 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  prophecies,  however, 
relates  to  the  fate  of  Serbia,  and  for  this  we  have 
the  authority  of  Count  Miyatovich,  former  Premier 
of  Serbia  and  at  present  envoy  extraordinary  to  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States,  on  behalf  of  that  strick- 
en country.  This  prophecy  was  made,  apparently,  in 
1868,  and  has  formed  part  of  the  secret  archives  of 
Serbia  ever  since.  Practically  everything  then  fore- 
told has  since  come  to  pass,  it  is  said;  while  many 
of  his  statements  relate  to  the  future,  and  are  still 
unfulfilled.  In  his  interesting  account,  in  the  Occult 
Review  (February,  1916),  Count  Miyatovich  tells  us 
how  this  prophecy  came  into  being.  He  says : — 

"  Three  or  four  miles  from  the  town  of  Ujitsa — (I 
may  here  add  that  the  district  of  Ujitsa  is  adjoining 
the  Sandjak  of  Novi  Pazar,  and  is  the  most  mountain- 
ous part  of  Serbia,  a  sort  of  Serbian  Scotland) — lies 
the  small  village  of  Kremna.  On  the  afternoon  of 
May  29,  1868,  a  peasant  of  that  village  came  in  a 
great  hurry  to  Ujitsa,  the  district's  principal  town, 
and  running  through  the  street  and  the  market,  shouted 
in  great  agitation:  'Help,  0  brethren,  help!  They 
are  murdering  our  Prince ! '  The  police,  thinking  that 
he  must  have  gone  mad,  or  was  drunk,  arrested  him. 
Two  hours  later  a  telegram  arrived  from  Belgrade 
announcing  the  assassination  of  Prince  Michael  in 
the  Park  of  Topchidere  on  that  afternoon.  The  police 
then  thought  the  peasant — whose  Christian  name  was 
Matha — must  have  known  something  of  the  conspiracy 
to  assassinate  the  Prince,  and  commenced  criminal 


146  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAE 

proceedings  against  him.  The  poor  fellow  swore  that 
he  did  not  know  anything  about  the  conspiracy,  but 
he  explained  that  he  suffered  from  a  'peculiar  malady' 
which  caused  him  from  time  to  time  to  see  visions, 
which  visions,  sooner  or  later,  became  confirmed  by 
real  happenings.  Asked  if  he  had  visions  concerning 
future  events  in  Serbia,  he  answered  affirmatively,  and 
at  the  request  of  the  President  of  the  Court  of  Justice 
and  the  Prefect  of  the  District,  he  described  what 
visions  he  had,  his  descriptions  being  taken  down  in 
writing  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Court.  The  original 
minutes  of  his  statements  are  still  preserved  in  the 
Archives  of  the  Court  of  Justice  at  Ujitsa." 

Count  Miyatovich  then  relates  how  Matha  foretold 
the  use  of  the  telephone;  stated  that  Nish  would  be 
Serbian;  that  Serbia  would  have  a  king;  the  wars 
of  Turkey  and  Bulgaria,  the  activities  of  King  Milan, 
his  divorce  from  his  wife,  his  exile  and  his  dying 
broken-hearted  abroad,  and  then  goes  on  to  narrate 
the  following  interesting  story : — 

"In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1889,  I  happened  to 
be  the  Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs  in  the  Cabinet 
of  the  venerable  Nichola  Christich  (whose  daughter- 
in-law,  Mme.  Elizabeth  Christich,  and  Miss  Jane  Chris- 
tich, are  well  known  as  Serbian  patriotic  ladies  in  Lon- 
don society,  and  in  journalistic  circles).  Now  I  must 
tell  here  an  historical  episode. 

"On  February  19,  1889,  the  Prime  Minister  called 
all  the  Ministers  to  a  sitting  of  the  Council,  and  to  our 
utter  astonishment  and  dismay,  told  us  that  the  King 
had  expressed  to  him  his  firm  resolution  to  abdicate 
the  crown  on  the  occasion  of  the  national  festival  on 
February  22,  that  is  to  say,  in  three  days!  On  my 
proposal  we  went  at  once  in  cor  pore  to  the  palace  to 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      147 

try  to  dissuade  the  King  from  his  fatal  and  unworthy 
intention.  Every  Minister  spoke,  and  implored  the 
King  to  abandon  so  unfortunate  a  decision.  I,  who 
had  been  not  only  a  loyal  subject  but  also  a  personal 
friend  to  the  King,  spoke  with  undisguised  indigna- 
tion. Having  exhausted  all  the  arguments,  the  Minis- 
ters waited  to  hear  what  the  King  had  to  say.  King 
Milan  then  replied,  thanking  the  Ministers  for  their 
loyalty  to  him,  and  acknowledged  that  their  arguments 
were  unanswerable,  but  that  he  had  been  considering 
abdication  from  all  points,  and  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  could  not  do  otherwise  than  abdicate.  Then 
he  added:  'I  am  not  surprised,  gentlemen,  at  your 
endeavours  to  dissuade  me  from  the  contemplated  step, 
but  I  am  astonished  that  Miyatovich  talks  with  such 
violence,  when  he  knows,  as  well  as  I  do,  that  my 
abdication  must  take  place ! ' 

"The  moment  we  left  the  King's  presence  the  Prime 
Minister  invited  us  to  come  to  his  room  for  consulta- 
tion. There  he  addressed  the  Ministers  somewhat  in 
these  words :  '  Gentlemen,  you  have  all  heard  the  King 
say  that  Mr.  Miyatovich  knows.  I  think  we  have  a 
right  to  ask  our  colleague  to  explain  why  he  never  said 
a  word  to  any  one  of  us  with  regard  to  the  King's 
intention  to  abdicate  ? ' 

"I  then  told  them  that  fourteen  years  before  King 
Milan  and  I  heard  together  many  details  of  the  proph- 
ecy of  Matha  of  Kremna,  that  among  those  details 
the  abdication  of  King  Milan  was  also  foretold,  and 
that  the  King's  remark  referred  to  that  prophecy. 
The  Minister  of  Public  Education,  Dr.  Vladan  Gyorg- 
yevich,  protested  against  such  a  ridiculous  explana- 
tion on  my  part,  and  said  that  probably  Matha  of 
Kremna  and  his  prophecy  never  existed. 


148  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  AVAR 

"Then,  to  my  own  pleasure  and  surprise,  our  old 
and  universally-respected  Prime  Minister  took  up  my 
defence  against  Dr.  Vladan.  *  You  will  remember,  gen- 
tlemen (he  said),  that  in  1868  I  had  the  misfortune 
of  being  the  Home  Minister,  when  Prince  Michael  was 
assassinated.  The  Prefect  of  Ujitsa  reported  to  me 
about  the  strange  visions  of  the  peasant  Matha  of 
Kremna,  and  it  was  I  myself  who  ordered  the  Prefect 
to  take  down  formal  minutes  of  the  statements  of  this 
peasant  concerning  his  visions  of  coming  events.  A 
copy  of  these  minutes  has  been  forwarded  to  me,  I 
have  read  it  myself,  and  I  believe  it  will  be  found  here 
in  the  next  room,  among  the  documents  of  the  Secret 
Archives  of  that  year  (1868).' 

"Thus  the  existence  of  the  prophecy  of  Matha  of 
Kremna  was  confirmed  by  the  Prime  Minister  Chris- 
tich,  a  man  well-known  for  his  earnestness,  cool  judg- 
ment, and  absolute  honesty. 

"The  third  statement  of  Matha  of  Kremna  con- 
cerns the  present  events  in  Serbia,  regarding  the 
whole  country :  '  The  people  will  be  most  unhappy  and 
suffer  terribly,  so  much,  indeed,  that  men  and  women 
passing  a  churchyard  will  exclaim:  "Oh,  how  happy 
you  are,  who  are  dead,  and  do  not  suffer  as  we  do 
now!"  But  after  some  time  a  man  will  arise  in  the 
midst  of  the  people,  will  drive  away  the  foreign  army, 
and  then  unite  all  the  Serbian  countries  into  one  state. 
An  era  of  prosperity  and  happiness  will  then  ensue, 
so  that  men  and  women  passing  a  churchyard  will  ex- 
claim: "What  a  pity  you  died,  and  are  not  living  to 
share  this  happiness  which  we  now  enjoy!"  .  .  .'  : 


PREMONITIONS 

Leaving  the  above  cases  to  speak  for  themselves — 
and  it  must  be  admitted  that,  while  some  of  them  are 
curious,  none  of  them  taken  individually  is  completely 
convincing — we  may  now  turn  our  attention  for  a  few 
moments  to  cases  of  individual  premonitory  warnings ; 
and  here,  I  think,  the  evidence  becomes  very  striking, 
in  many  instances.  It  should  perhaps  be  pointed  out, 
parenthetically,  that  a  great  amount  of  evidence  has  al- 
ready been  published  on  this  subject  in  the  past ;  Mrs. 
Henry  Sidgwick's  paper  "On  the  Evidence  for  Premo- 
nitions," in  Proceedings,  Vol.  V. ;  Mr.  F.  W.  H.  Myers' 
long  article  on  "Precognition"  in  Volume  XI;  cases 
scattered  throughout  psychic  journals  and  other  pub- 
lications; Dr.  Bozzano's  book  (in  Italian)  on  premo- 
nitions— here  and  elsewhere  a  mass  of  evidence  may 
be  found,  tending  t&  prove  that  man  does  at  times 
lift,  at  least  partially  and  fitfully,  the  veil  which  con- 
ceals the  future,  and  learns  what  is  about  to  happen 
to  him,  or  sees  some  event  which  afterwards  actually 
transpires 

It  is  not  the  place  here  to  enter  into  any  discussion 
as  to  the  causes  at  work — supposing  genuine  premo- 
nition to  be  a  fact.  Some  have  contended  that  there 
is  a  species  of  clairvoyance  in  time,  as  there  is  in 
space;  some  that  discarnate  spirits  assist  in  the  pic- 
turing of  some  future  event;  some  believe  that  "com- 
ing events  cast  their  shadows  before,"  and  that  pres- 
ent events  have  already  shaped  or  predestined  future 
steps  in  the  cosmic  evolution,  and  that  these  happen- 
ings are  somehow  stamped  or  impressed  upon  some 
plastic  or  etheric  substance,  and  thence  read  or  inter- 
preted by  the  seer ;  some  believe  that  the  future  is  al- 


150  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

ready  present,  in  some  sense,  only  not  yet  known  or 
perceived  by  us  as  " present";  some  that  the  subcon- 
scious mind  of  the  seer,  by  its  own  heightened  powers 
of  perception,  is  enabled  to  perceive  tendencies  more 
readily  than  the  normal  mind,  and  hence  registers 
them  ahead  of  their  registration  by  the  normal  con- 
sciousness— these  and  other  theories  might  be  given  at 
length,  and  their  various  pros  and  cons  discussed ;  but 
such  discussion  would  not  here  profit  us.  We  need 
only  record  the  fact — for  fact  it  appears  to  be — that 
men  and  women,  under  certain  stresses  of  the  mind  or 
of  the  emotions,  or  in  certain  peculiar  and  ill-under- 
stood states,  which  often  seem  to  appear  quite  spon- 
taneously,— do  in  fact  partially  and  dimly  vision  the 
future ;  and  that,  inasmuch  as  this  faculty  is  apparently 
not  the  result  of  terrene  evolution,  it  indicates  to  us, 
very  strongly,  the  existence  in  man  of  powers  which 
are  destined  for  use  in  some  higher  sphere  of  activity, 
—where  these  psychic  and  supernormal  powers  are  in 
fact  employed. 

The  present  war  has  furnished  many  cases  of  this 
character;  and  from  those  which  might  be  given,  the 
following  will  at  least  act  as  samples,  illustrative  of  the 
rest.  In  some  cases,  the  soldier  has  foreseen  his  own 
death ;  in  others,  he  has  been  enabled  to  prevent  it ;  in 
still  others,  his  death  has  been  foreseen  by  those  near 
and  dear  to  him  at  home;  in  still  others,  a  general 
vision  or  picture  has  been  shown — in  which,  naturally, 
the  seer  plays  a  prominent  part — as  he  would  in  his 
own  dreams.  Take  for  example  the  following  case,  for 
which  I  am  indebted  to  Rosa  Stuart's  little  book 
Dreams  and  Visions  of  the  War*  We  might  call  it — 

*  Dreams  and  Visions  of  the  War,  by  Rosa  Stuart ;  with  a  Preface 
by  Estelle  Stead.  Arthur  Pearson  and  Co.,  London.  I/-  net. 


PEOPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      151 

A  Premonition  of  Death 

"A  striking  case  took  place  during  the  campaign  on 
the  Gallipoli  Peninsula  in  1915.  It  is  a  case  not  likely 
to  be  easily  forgotten  by  the  mates  of  Private  Rey- 
nolds,— the  chief  actor  in  this  touching  little  drama  of 
the  war.  The  following  is  the  story  as  related  by  his 
comrade,  Private  Pugh.  It  is  interesting  to  know,  too, 
that  its  authenticity  is  vouched  for  by  the  Captain  of 
the  regiment  to  which  the  two  men  belonged. 

"It  was  a  stifling  hot  summer's  night  on  the  Gal- 
lipoli Peninsula,  Fighting  had  taken  place  intermit- 
tently during  the  day.  For  a  time,  however,  the  can- 
non had  stopped  their  booming  and  activity  of  stray 
snipers  had  relaxed,  so  the  little  company  of  New 
Zealanders  who  had  held  their  ground  so  bravely  were 
snatching  a  welcome  half -hour's  sleep. 

"Suddenly  Private  Reynolds  awoke  with  a  start. 
All  sleepiness  had  left  him.  His  sudden  movement 
succeeded  in  waking  his  neighbour,  Private  Pugh,  also, 
and  as  the  latter  raised  himself  on  his  elbow  to  see 
what  could  be  amiss,  he  saw  that  Reynolds  was  staring 
up  at  the  sky  with  a  startled  look  in  his  eyes. 

"  'What's  the  matter,  mate?  You  look  kind  o' 
scared,'  he  said. 

"There  was  silence  for  a  moment.  The  night  was 
calm,  still  and  impressive.  In  the  firmament  of  blue 
above  gleamed  myriads  of  golden  points  of  light.  Afar, 
the  gentle,  soothing  lap  of  the  waves  against  the  rocks 
could  be  heard.  Then  Private  Reynolds  spoke : 

"  'I  shall  have  to  go  on  Listening  Post  duty  at  mid- 
night on  the  25th  of  June,  and  I  shall  be  shot  through 
the  head,'  he  said. 

"  'But  what  makes  you  think  that?'  asked  his  com- 


panion,  impressed  in  spite  of  himself  by  the  deep,  calm 
tones  of  conviction  in  which  Reynolds'  startling  an- 
nouncement had  been  made. 

"  'Only  this,'  was  the  reply.  'I  had  a  dream  just 
now,  and  in  that  dream  I  saw  my  mother  reading  a 
newspaper.  She  looked  up  from  it  suddenly,  and  her 
face  was  so  white  and  her  eyes  so  horror-struck  that 
I  found  myself  looking  over  her  shoulder  to  see  what 
she  had  been  reading,  and  there  in  the  "Roll  of  hon- 
our" my  name  stood  out — "Private  Reynolds,  shot 
through  the  head  while  on  Listening  Post  duty  on  June 
25th,"  is  what  I  read.' 

"Private  Pugh  laughed  at  his  friend  for  his  'fit  of 
the  blues, '  as  he  called  it,  and  so  did  all  his  other  chums. 
They  said  the  dream  was  the  result  of  a  disordered 
mind  aggravated  by  poor  rations  and  physical  fatigue, 
— in  short  that  the  general  war  conditions  had  got  on 
his  nerves.  He  was  told  to  'buck  up,'  and  put  all 
thought  of  it  out  of  his  head. 

'  *  But  they  couldn  't  help  recalling  the  dream  premo- 
nition at  which  they  had  scoffed  when  Private  Reynolds 
was  called  out  on  Listening  Post  duty  with  five  of  his 
companions  two  days  later,  on  June  25th,  the  very  day 
which  his  dream  had  foretold. 

"Only  two  of  the  six  men  came  back.  These  report- 
ed that  the  party  had  been  taken  in  ambush  by  the 
Turks  at  midnight.  Private  Reynolds,  with  three  of 
his  mates,  had  been  shot  through  the  head.  Thus  in 
every  detail  had  his  dream  been  fulfilled. ' ' 

A  Fulfilled  Prophecy 

Another  remarkable  example  of  a  case  of  this  kind 
is  to  be  found  in  the  experience  of  William  Roberts, 
who  fought  at  Suvla  Bay. 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      153 

"In  May,  1912,  Roberts  was  a  merchant  seaman,  and 
it  was  just  about  this  time  that  he  had  a  dream  which 
puzzled  him  a  great  deal. 

"For  he  dreamt  that  he  was  in  the  khaki  uniform  of 
a  soldier  taking  part  in  a  skirmish,  in  the  course  of 
which  the  men  on  his  side  were  being  pressed  back. 
Soon  afterwards  he  found  himself  alone  and  confronted 
by  two  dark-visaged  enemy  officers,  one  of  whom  en- 
gaged him  and  clearly  had  the  upper  hand.  He  cut 
at  Roberts'  head  a  few  times,  though  Roberts  suc- 
ceeded in  parrying  these  cuts ;  then  he  made  a  thrust  at 
his  right  side,  which  practically  disabled  him  and  made 
him  cry  out  in  pain.  Finding  him  helpless  and  at  their 
mercy,  his  attackers  took  away  his  equipment  and 
weapons  from  him.  At  this  point  he  awoke;  but  the 
dream  left  an  impression  upon  him  for  some  time,  and 
he  related  it  to  several  people.  'Funny  thing  that  a 
sailor  should  dream  pf  fighting  on  land, '  he  said. 

"His  dream  was  fulfilled  in  a  curious  way.  Upon 
the  outbreak  of  war  he  decided  to  enter  the  Army  in- 
stead of  going  into  the  Navy,  as  he  knew  that  just  then 
soldiers  were  the  nation's  foremost  need.  He  was 
amongst  those  who  went  to  Suvla  Bay,  and  on  Novem- 
ber 25,  1915,  at  the  'Green  Knoll,'  Suvla,  took  place 
the  very  fight  he  had  witnessed  in  his  dream. 

"Shortly  after  sunset  his  company  had  come  out  of 
the  front  line  trench.  They  took  up  a  new  position, 
and  had  only  been  digging  themselves  in  a  short  while, 
when  the  Turks  were  upon  them,  rushing  their  left 
flank.  They  were  compelled  to  fall  back  man  by  man 
to  avoid  being  trapped.  Roberts,  the  last  man  on  the 
right  flank,  received  a  bullet  through  the  side.  He  had 
no  sooner  fallen  than  two  dark-visaged  Turks  rushed 
upon  him.  One  attacked  him  with  a  sword  bayonet,  a 


154  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

kind  of  weapon  which  each  of  them  carried.  He  made 
several  cuts  at  Koberts'  head,  cuts,  however,  which 
the  latter  managed  to  parry.  Then  the  Turks  com- 
menced thrusting  at  his  right  side.  The  first  thrust 
disabled  Koberts  and  made  him  cry  out  with  pain. 
Between  them  the  two  Turks  despoiled  him  of  his  arms 
and  equipment  and  then  retreated  quickly,  as  the  Brit- 
ish had  started  a  bomb  attack. 

' '  Judge  of  the  amazement  of  the  wounded  man  when 
suddenly  he  realized  that  the  spot  on  which  this  inci- 
dent had  taken  place  was  the  very  spot  pictured  in  his 
dream.  He  had  been  attacked  and  wounded  in  the  right 
side  by  two  dark-visaged  men,  exactly  as  he  had  dreamt 
he  would  be  three  years  before  at  a  time  when  the 
thought  of  donning  the  King's  uniform  had  never  so 
much  as  entered  his  head." 

Foresaw  Own  Death 

It  is  not  unusual  for  a  soldier  to  have  a  deeply- 
rooted  impression  of  impending  death  upon  the  battle- 
field; but  seldom  is  a  premonition  fulfilled  in  regard  to 
the  smallest  detail,  as  in  the  case  of  a  lieutenant  in  the 
1st  Battalion  Somerset  Light  Infantry,  a  young  man 
of  twenty-two,  who  met  his  death  at  the  front  in  July, 
1916. 

Before  he  adopted  the  uniform  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war,  he  was  an  assistant  master  of  the  Choir 
School  of  a  well-known  church  in  London,  with  the  help 
of  the  clergy  of  which  church  he  was  studying  for  Holy 
Orders.  Grave,  quiet  and  peace-loving  by  nature,  his 
strong  sense  of  duty  urged  him  to  resign  his  duties  for 
the  time  being  and  answer  the  call  of  his  country ;  but 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      155 

from  the  first  he  seemed  convinced  that  he  would  not 
survive  the  war. 

Later  he  was  able  to  foretell  how  he  was  going  to 
die.  "I  shall  be  wounded  four  times,  and  my  fourth 
wound  will  kill  me,"  he  told  his  friends.  Things  hap- 
pened exactly  as  he  said.  On  three  different  occasions 
he  was  wounded  and  came  home  on  sick  leave.  The 
last  time  before  he  returned  to  the  front  he  bade  his 
people  an  impressive  farewell. 

' '  You  will  not  see  me  again, ' '  he  gravely  said. 

And  he  never  returned,  for  in  the  second  half  of  July 
he  was  once  more  wounded  in  action,  this  time  very 
dangerously,  for  he  had  a  fracture  at  the  back  of  the 
skull.  They  took  him  to  hospital  at  Rouen,  where  two 
days  later  he  passed  away. 


In  the  following  case  the  relatives  of  the  sick  man 
seemed  to  be  apprised  of  his  illness  just  before  or  at 
about  the  time  he  was  delirious  and  at  his  worst.  The 
case — though  older  than  those  just  given — is  interest- 
ing, and  was  thoroughly  investigated  at  the  time.  The 
father 's  testimony  is  as  follows : — 

'  *  On  Sunday  night,  25th  May,  I  had  a  most  extraor- 
dinary dream.  I  dreamt  that  my  son  A.,  a  young  offi- 
cer in  a  regiment  at  Gibraltar,  was  lying  very  ill  there 
with  the  fever,  and  was  calling  out  to  me,  'Father, 
father,  come  over  and  let  me  see  you  or  my  mother.' 
The  next  morning  I  went  to  see  the  Rev.  G.,  the  well- 
known  coach,  living  near  me.  On  entering  his  room  he 
exclaimed,  'Do  you  believe  in  "dream-waves"?'  I  re- 
plied, No,  I  did  not.  He  remarked  that  just  as  I  was 
entering  the  room,  he  was  on  the  point  of  sitting  down 


156  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

before  his  desk  and  commencing  a  letter  to  me,  asking 
me  to  come  over  and  see  him.  I  then  said,  'I  had  a 
curious  dream  last  night.  I  saw  before  me  my  son  A., 
down  with  fever  at  Gibraltar,  imploring  me  to  come 
over  and  see  him.'  As  I  had  that  morning  a  letter 
from  him,  written  in  good  spirits,  I  thought  it  was  curi- 
ous, and  gave  the  dream  no  further  thought. 

"On  Tuesday,  the  27th  May,  I  went  to  Bamsgate 
with  my  second  son,  for  change.  On  the  29th  May,  one 
of  my  family  here  wired  to  me  to  return  home,  as  news 
had  arrived  from  Gibraltar  that  my  son  A.  was  very 
ill  with  Rock  fever.  I  returned  in  a  few  hours.  I  read 
over  my  letters  from  Gibraltar.  It  appears  that  on  the 
17th  May,  my  son  fell  ill,  and  was  placed  on  the  sick 
list.  The  attack  turned  out  to  be  Rock  fever.  He 
gradually  got  worse ;  on  the  24th  he  was  delirious,  and 
on  the  25th  his  brother  officers  had  to  get  a  nurse,  Mrs. 
S.,  to  take  charge  of  the  patient.  On  the  23rd  a  second 
doctor  was  called  in  consultation.  So  bad  was  the  news 
that  I  received  from  Gibraltar  by  letter  and  telegrams, 
that  I  left  London  on  the  4th  June,  and  reached  it  on 
the  9th.  I  found  the  patient  doing  well,  but  very  weak. 
I  had  to  remain  there  until  the  3rd  July,  the  attack  of 
fever  continuing,  and  we  both  returned  home  on  the 
8th  July. 

' '  I  mentioned  to  the  nurse  my  curious  dream  of  25th 
May.  She  said  she  was  placed  in  charge  of  the  patient 
on  the  afternoon  of  that  day.  He  was  very  delirious 
all  that  night,  and  was  constantly  calling  out,  'Oh, 
mother,  mother,  do  come  over  to  see  me';  and  as  he 
probably  remembered  how  delicate  she  was,  that  she 
could  not  take  a  sea  voyage  across  the  Bay  of  Biscay, 
he  also  called  out,  'Father,  father,  come  and  comfort 
me,  and  let  me  see  you  again.' 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      157 

''It  was  months  after  our  return  home  before  the 
fever  left  him,  and  he  did  not  quite  get  rid  of  it  till 
November.  .  .  ." 

In  conversation,  Colonel  V.  stated  that  he  dreamed 
very  little,  and  scarcely  ever  had  distressing  dreams ; 
and  that,  quite  apart  from  the  confirmation,  this  dream 
would  have  been  very  exceptional  in  its  character. 
Mrs.  S.,  who  was  an  excellent  nurse,  and  whom  Colonel 
V.  regards  as  entirely  trustworthy,  has  left  Gibraltar, 
and  gone,  he  thinks,  to  Morocco. 

A  True  Vision 

A  somewhat  striking  instance  of  a  mother's  pro- 
phetic dream  is  to  be  found  in  the  experience  of  the 
Derry  lady,  whose  son,  belonging  to  the  Canadian 
Mounted  Rifles,  was  away  at  the  time  doing  his  bit  "at 
the  front." 

In  her  dream  she  saw  her  son  standing  with  his  back 
towards  her.  He  had  evidently  lost  both  his  uniform 
and  his  equipment,  for  his  sole  garment  seemed  to  con- 
sist of  an  odd-looking  purple  robe  with  a  number  of 
folds,  that  had  been  wrapped  around  him.  As  she 
looked  at  him  she  noticed  that  he  held  his  arms  above 
his  head  in  the  attitude  of  surrender.  And  then  she 
awoke. 

"I  feel  sure  that  our  boy  has  been  taken  a  prisoner 
by  the  Germans,"  she  said  to  her  husband  the  next 
morning,  after  relating  her  dream  She  told  it  to  sev- 
eral other  people,  describing  also  the  position  of  a 
canal,  the  house  near  by,  and  a  group  of  willows  at  the 
scene  of  the  capture.  An  officer  who  had  been  at  the 
front  recognized  it  from  her  description  as  a  portion 
of  the  country  round  Hooge. 


158  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

Until  the  night  of  her  dream  her  son  had  sent  his 
mother  a  postcard  regularly  every  week.  Her  anxiety 
was  great  when  for  three  weeks  no  card  came,  and  she 
felt  sure  her  dream  had  been  a  true  one. 

This  belief  was  confirmed  when  three  weeks  later  she 
received  the  Canadian  Eecord  Officer 's  intimation  that 
her  son  was  reported  missing  since  the  night  of  June 
2,  1916,  the  very  night  of  her  dream.  Next  day  she 
received  a  card  from  her  son  with  the  information  that 
he  was  a  prisoner  of  war  in  Germany.  Three  weeks 
later  his  first  letter  came.  In  the  course  of  this  he 
said: 

"I  will  not  tell  you  of  the  terrible  hours  previous  to 
my  capture,  except  to  say  it  is  a  miracle  that  I  am 
alive.  I  was  taken  on  the  night  of  June  2nd,  and  when 
captured  I  was  practically  naked,  being  without  cap, 
coat,  or  boots.  My  captors,  however,  were  very  decent, 
and  supplied  me  with  most  of  what  I  needed  when  I 
reached  here." 

Thus  to  the  very  date  of  the  capture  of  her  son,  the 
mother's  remarkable  dream  was  fulfilled.  She  is  wait- 
ing until  the  end  of  the  war  to  learn  more  fully  of  its 
almost  uncanny  accuracy. 

Saved  From  Death 

The  premonitory  warning  may  take  the  form  of  a 
picture,  a  voice,  a  form,  a  restraining  hand,  or  merely 
a  more  or  less  vague  impression  to  do  a  certain  thing 
at  a  certain  time.  These  are  merely  the  various  ways 
in  which  the  subconscious  mind  externalizes  its  infor- 
mation, or  in  which  that  knowledge  is  imparted  to  it. 
In  the  following  incident,  for  example,  the  soldier  saw 
a  vision  of  his  mother,  and  this  apparently  saved  him 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      159 

from  certain  death.  Writing  home  to  his  mother,  he 
says : — 

' '  One  night  while  carrying  bombs,  I  had  occasion  to 
take  cover  when  about  twenty  yards  off  I  saw  you  look- 
ing towards  me  as  plain  as  life.  Leaving  my  bombs  I 
crawled  nearly  to  the  place  where  your  vision  ap- 
peared, when  a  German  shell  dropped  on  them,  and — 
well — I  had  to  return  for  some  more.  But  had  it  not 
been  for  you,  I  certainly  would  have  been  reported 
'missing.' 

"  .  .  .  You'll  turn  up  again,  won't  you,  mother,  next 
time  a  shell  is  coming?" 

Foresaw  Own  Death 

There  seems  to  be  a  general  impression  among  sol- 
diers stationed  in  certain  parts  of  the  front  that  Lord 
Kitchener  knew  that  liis  own  death  would  be  on  sea 
and  not  on  land,  and  many  tales  are  told  to  the  effect 
that  Kitchener  himself  mentioned  this  on  more  than 
one  occasion.  The  following  account,  quoted  admit- 
tedly at  second  or  third  hand,  seems  to  bear  this  out. 
A  recent  publication  states  that — 

"An  officer  in  the  French  Army,  who  was  in  the 
great  General's  company  when  the  latter  visited 
France  shortly  before  his  death,  related  how  one  day 
when  they  were  going  together  through  the  danger 
zone  at  the  front,  a  shell  burst  very  near  them.  The 
French  officer  was  alarmed  for  the  safety  of  the  man 
upon  whom  so  much  depended,  but  Lord  Kitchener  did 
not  flinch: 

"  'There  is  nothing  here  that  will  harm  me,'  he  said 
confidently.  '  Somehow  I  seem  to  know  that  it  will  be 
on  sea,  and  not  on  land,  that  I  shall  meet  my  end. ' 


160  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

' '  Barely  a  month  later  his  premonition  was  fulfilled, 
for  on  a  stormy  night  in  a  wild  sea,  off  the  rocky  coast 
of  the  Orkneys,  the  Hampshire,  on  which  Lord  Kitch- 
ener and  his  staff  had  set  out  for  Eussia,  was  wrecked 
two  hours  after  sailing,  and  so  it  was  on  the  sea  and 
not  on  land  that  one  of  the  greatest  soldiers  of  modern 
times  met  his  death." 

It  may  perhaps  be  said  that,  out  of  all  the  thousands 
of  men  who  are  daily  giving  up  their  lives  at  the  front, 
and  whose  relatives  are  thinking  about  them,  with  anx- 
ious thoughts,  there  must  be  many  coincidences,  and 
that  "coincidence"  alone  is  sufficient  to  account  for  the 
cases  presented,  or  those  hitherto  gathered  and  pub- 
lished. In  this  connection,  however,  it  should  be 
pointed  out  that  no  amount  of  thinking  about  a  person, 
however  near  and  dear  he  may  be,  would  be  sufficient 
in  itself  to  present  to  the  subconscious  mind  a  pro- 
phetic picture  of  the  actual  circumstances  of  the  death 
—that  is,  the  actual  and  accurate  facts  in  the  case. 

Take,  for  example,  the  following  instance,  given  in 
Dreams  and  Visions  of  the  War: — 

A  Vision  of  Death 

"A  case  in  point  came  to  my  knowledge  quite  re- 
cently. It  is  the  tragic  experience  of  Mrs.  Parker  of 
London,  whose  son  enlisted  in  the  Army  in  November, 
1915,  and  went  to  Chatham  for  his  training.  In  this 
case  I  may  say  at  once  that  the  element  of  anxiety  was 
conspicuously  lacking.  Private  Parker  was  in  train- 
ing at  a  home  station.  There  was  no  prospect  of  his 
being  called  to  actual  danger  for  some  months  at  least. 
His  mother  had  not  the  slightest  ground  for  worrying 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      161 

about  him  at  all.  And  she  didn't  worry  about  him. 
Far  back  in  the  recesses  of  her  mind  was  the  thought 
of  the  time  when  he  would  join  the  other  lads  in  the 
trenches  in  Flanders, — a  time  when  she  would  never 
hear  the  postman's  knock  upon  the  door  without  a  feel- 
ing of  dread ;  but  bravely  she  put  these  thoughts  away 
from  her,  for  she  knew  by  experience  that  'Sufficient 
unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof, '  is  a  very  useful  motto 
to  act  up  to  in  time  of  war. 

"And  then,  just  after  he  had  been  three  months  in 
training,  she  had  her  dream.  Just  a  day  or  so  before 
she  had  received  a  letter  from  him  in  which  he  told  her 
he  was  in  splendid  health  and  spirits,  and  she  was  per- 
fectly happy  about  him.  'The  life  will  do  the  lad  a 
power  of  good, '  she  would  say  to  the  neighbours  again 
and  again. 

"Yet  on  the  night  of  the  4th  of  February,  1916,  a 
date  which  will  ever  live  in  her  memory,  she  dreamt 
that  she  saw  a  coffin  brought  home  by  four  soldiers  and 
placed  on  two  chairs  just  inside  the  hall  by  the  front 
door.  Standing  near  the  soldiers  was  a  man  in  mufti, 
who  looked  at  her  gravely  with  an  air  of  commisera- 
tion upon  his  face.  Then  he  advanced  slowly  and 
raised  the  coffin  lid  in  order  that  she  might  glance  at 
the  corpse  within.  She  gave  a  scream  of  agony  and 
terror  as  in  the  cold,  waxen,  lifeless  features  she  recog- 
nized the  face  of  her  son.  Overcome  with  horror  and 
grief  she  awoke,  feeling  sure  that  such  a  dream  was  a 
presage  of  evil,  although,  as  I  have  said  before,  her 
son  was  presumably  in  no  danger,  for  he  was  still 
training  at  Chatham,  and  there  was  no  prospect  of  his 
being  sent  out  to  France  for  three  months  at  least. 

"That  night,  as  she  said  afterwards,  was  for  her  a 


162  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

night  of  grim  terror,  though  she  did  her  best  to  per- 
suade herself  that  it  was  foolish  to  worry  over  a  dream, 
that  in  fact  there  was  no  reason  of  any  kind  for  her 
to  worry  at  all. 

"But  on  the  following  morning  she  received  a  wire 
from  the  officer  commanding  the  Military  Hospital  at 
Chatham,  saying  her  son  was  seriously  ill.  Three  days 
later  he  died,  and  his  body  was  brought  up  from  Chat- 
ham by  military  escort  for  burial  in  London.  And 
now  comes  the  strangest  part  of  the  whole  experience. 
The  coffin  containing  the  corpse  was  carried  into  the 
house  of  the  grief-stricken  mother  by  four  soldiers, 
who  set  it  down  upon  two  chairs  in  the  hall.  It  was 
then  that  the  undertaker,  the  man  in  mufti  in  her 
dream,  came  forward  and  removed  the  coffin-lid  in 
order  that  she  might  take  a  last  look  at  her  son's  fea- 
tures before  the  coffin  was  finally  screwed  down." 

Prophetic  Dreams 

The  following  premonitory  dreams,  relating  to  Zep- 
pelin raids,  were  published  in  the  Journal  S.  P.  R., 
October-November,  1917.  Writing  editorially,  Mrs. 
Salter  says : — 

In  the  following  case  the  percipient,  Miss  W.,  dreamt 
vividly  of  an  air  raid  at  a  time  when  one  was  actually 
in  progress  at  a  distance.  On  the  first  occasion  it  is 

possible  that  Miss  W may  have  received  some 

intimation  of  the  raid  by  normal  means  during  her 
sleep ;  on  the  second  occasion  this  hypothesis  does  not 
seem  tenable.  In  view  of  the  frequency  with  which  air- 
raids occurred  during  the  month  of  September,  and  of 
the  degree  of  expectation  which  was  thereby  aroused, 
it  is  worth  while  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  at  the 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      163 

time  of  Miss  "W 's  dream  she  had  no  special  reason 

to  anticipate  a  raid. 

The  first  report  we  received  was  in  a  letter  from 

Miss  W ,  as  follows: 

August  23,  1917. 

I  do  not  know  whether  you  will  consider  the  follow- 
ing incident  worth  recording.  In  the  night  of  Tues- 
day last,  August  23d-24th,  there  was  an  air-raid  alarm 
in  this  town.  The  warning  is  only  given  by  lights  go- 
ing out,  and  as  I  was  already  in  bed  I  knew  nothing  of 
it  until  I  went  down  to  breakfast  in  the  morning.  Our 
night  nurse  wasi  sitting  up  with  my  mother ;  she  is  very 
nervous,  and  in  previous  alarms  and  raids  had  been 
much  frightened.  However,  this  time,  because  we  had 
had  such  an  anxious  time,  she  put  a  great  compulsion 
on  herself  and  did  not  call  me,  but  she  has  been  saying 
ever  since  that  she  cannot  understand  how  she  was 
able  to  do  it — she  did  not  seem  to  be  herself  at  all. 
The  effect  on  me  was  that  I  had  a  very  vivid  dream  of 
a  raid:  I  saw  the  Zeppelin  (in  my  dream)  and  dis- 
cussed with  my  brother  whether  it  was  our  own  or 
hostile;  I  saw  the  men  prepare  to  drop  a  bomb,  and 
saw  (but  did  not  hear)  the  bomb  drop  and  explode. 
On  that  I  awoke,  and  it  was  six-thirty  A.  M.  Some 
bombs  were  dropped  on  villages  near  the  Humber,  I 
see  by  the  papers.  No  remarks  had  been  made  about 
Zeppelins  for  a  long  time  previously,  and  the  general 
impression  was  that  we  had  finished  with  them.  In 
spite  of  being  in  innumerable  alarms  at  Hull  and  here, 
I  have  never  dreamt  of  an  air-raid  before. 

M S.  W . 

We  then  wrote  to  Miss  W asking  if  she  had 

related  her  dream  to  any  one  before  she  knew  of  the 


164  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

raid  and  if  a  statement  could  be  obtained  from  the 
nurse.  We  also  asked  whether  there  was  any  possi- 
bility that  Miss  W could  have  heard  the  bombs 

in  her  sleep.    Miss  W replied  as  follows : 

August  25,  1917. 

I  will  try  and  answer  the  questions  in  your  letter. 

Unfortunately  I  did  not  mention  my  dream  before 
hearing  of  the  alarm.  I  most  probably  should  have 
done  so,  but  I  had  no  opportunity.  On  going  down  to 
breakfast  about  8.20  I  met  Mrs.  Mercer  (the  night 
nurse)  on  the  stairs,  and  as  soon  as  ever  she  saw  me 
she  said,  "Do  you  know  there  has  been  an  alarm  in 
the  night?"  I  replied,  "That  is  curious,  because  I 
have  had  such  a  vivid  dream  of  a  raid" — or  words  to 
that  effect.  She  was  the  first  person  I  saw  that  morn- 
ing. I  enclose  her  statement. 

Saturday,  August  25,  1917. 

Mrs.  W 's  night  nurse  met  Miss  W on  the 

stairs  about  8.20  a.  m.  Wednesday  morning,  22nd 
(August),  saying:  "There  has  been  a  raid"  (to  which 
she  replied),  "Well,  I  have  been  dreaming  about  a 
raid  and  Zepps  and  bombs  dropping."  I  then  said  to 
Miss  W — — :  "I  would  not  call  you  or  any  one,  until 
I  heard  the  men  coming  to  call  up,"  feeling  very  cool 
and  not  nervous,  very  unusual  for  me. 

A.  MERCER. 

The  following  is  the  official  report  of  the  raid,  which 
appeared  in  the  Times  of  August  23,  1917 : 

The  following  communique  was  issued  by  the  Field- 
Marshal,  Commander-in-Chief,  Home  Forces,  yester- 
day (August  22),  11.15  a.  m.: 

Enemy  airships — numbers  not  definitely  ascertained 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      165 

—appeared  off  the  Yorkshire  coast  last  night  (August 
21-22). 

One  of  the  raiders  attacked  the  mouth  of  the  Hum- 
ber,  and  was  fired  on  by  anti-aircraft  guns.  She 
dropped  some  bombs  and  then  made  off  to  sea. 

The  damage  so  far  reported  is  slight,  but  one  man 

was  injured. 

4.10  p.  m. 

Latest  reports  show  that,  although  a  number  of  en- 
emy airships  approached  the  Yorkshire  coast  last 
night,  only  one,  or  at  most  two,  ventured  to  come  over- 
land. Twelve  high  explosive  and  13  incendiary  bombs 
were  dropped  at  three  small  villages  near  the  coast; 
a  chapel  was  wrecked  and  several  small  houses  dam- 
aged. One  man  was  injured. 

Our  correspondent  in  a  Northeast  Coast  town  tele- 
graphs that  after  some  months'  immunity  from  raids 
a  Zeppelin  appeared  on  Tuesday  night.  One  aged  man 
was  injured  and  was  removed  to  the  infirmary.  At  a 
seaside  resort  in  the  district  there  was  an  alarm,  but 
no  damage  was  done. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  report  that  this  was 
the  first  Zeppelin  raid  which  had  taken  place  for  some 

time.    Although  it  is  possible  that  Miss  W 's  dream 

was  occasioned  by  her  hearing  and  interpreting  .  .  . 
in  sleep  the  sound  of  the  "  relief  -buzzer, "  this  does  not 
appear  very  probable,  since  she  was  not  familiar  with 
the  sound,  and  her  dream  did  not  occur  until  nearly 
three  hours  after  the  relief  signal  was  given. 

Shortly  afterwards  we  had  a  further  communication 

from  Miss  W ,  as  follows : 

September  3,  1917. 

Last  night  (the  night  of  September  2-3)  I  again  had 
the  same  vivid  dream  of  an  air-raid  as  the  one  I  re- 


166  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

ported  to  you  about  12  days  ago.  I  saw  the  bomb 
drop,  and  saw,  and  this  time  also  heard,  it  explode. 
When  I  awoke  it  was  4  A.  M.  A  cousin  was  sharing 
my  room,  and  when  she  awoke  about  7.45,  I  told  her 
of  my  dream;  I  had  not  been  downstairs  or  seen  any 
one  else.  We  rather  smiled  to  think  of  my  having 
dreamt  the  dream  on  a  night  so  unlikely,  as  we  thought, 
for  a  raid.  There  was  a  brilliant  moon  and  a  high 
barometer.  On  getting  into  the  town  about  11  we  saw 
the  notice  of  the  raid  on  the  Kentish  coast  chalked  out- 
side the  newspaper  office.  No  one  else  heard  any  noise 
or  explosion  during  the  night. 

M.  S.  W . 

A  corroborative  account  was  received  from  Miss 
W 's  cousin — A M.  F . 

The  following  official  report  of  the  raid  appeared  in 
the  Times  of  September  3,  1917: 

The  following  communique,  issued  by  the  Field-Mar- 
shal, Comniander-in-Chief,  Home  Forces,  at  11.50  last 
night,  was  received  at  the  Press  Bureau  at  1  o'clock 
this  morning,  and  forwarded  to  the  Press  at  1.30  :— 

Hostile  aeroplanes  crossed  the  East  Kent  coast  at 
about  11.15  tonight  (September  2,  1917)  and  flew  sea- 
wards a  few  minutes  later. 

A  few  bombs  were  dropped. 

There  is  no  detailed  information  as  regards  casual- 
ties, but  they  are  believed  to  be  small. 

A  message  from  the  southeast  coast  early  this  morn- 
ing reported  that  a  single  enemy  aeroplane  flew  over 
the  coast  about  midnight.  The  night  was  beautifully 
fine.  The  moon  was  full,  and  the  wind  had  fallen 
somewhat.  It  is  stated  that  six  bombs  were  dropped, 
and  that  two  persons  were  injured. 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS     167 

Another  report  gives  the  number  of  injured  per- 
sons as  five  but  they  are  not  serious  cases.  The  raid  is 
described  as  having  lasted  a  few  minutes  only. 

This  was  the  first  of  the  "moonlight"  raids  which 
became  so  common  in  the  latter  part  of  September. 
The  earlier  Zeppelin  raids — it  will  be  remembered — 

usually  took  place  on  moonless  nights.    Miss  W 

had  therefore  no  reason  to  expect  a  raid  on  that  par- 
ticular night,  and  since  the  raid  was  in  Kent,  it  does 
not  seem  that  she  could  have  become  aware  of  it  during 
the  night  by  any  normal  means. 

In  her  original  letter  Miss  W states  that  these 

were  the  only  occasions  upon  which  she  had  dreamt  of 
an  air-raid.  This  statement  she  repeated  on  October 
4,  1917,  as  follows  :— 

Yes,  it  is  quite  correct  to  say  that  I  have  never  ex- 
cept on  those  two  occasions  dreamt  of  an  air-raid,  or 
of  anything  connected  with  one.  I  am  always  (except 
just  that  once)  called  up  when  there  is  an  alarm  at 
either  York  or  Hull,  so,  of  course,  that  diminished  the 
opportunity  of  dreaming. 

M.  S.  W— . 

An  Accurate  Premonition 

The  following  case  is  narrated  in  a  contemporary 
publication : — 

' '  An  interesting  case  is  that  of  a  Pagham  lady  who 
dreamt  she  saw  her  son  coming  down  the  garden  path 
with  a  coloured  shirt  on.  He  was  walking  in  a  curious 
way,  in  that  he  kept  hie  left  side  turned  from  her,  and 
that  is  what  puzzled  her  about  her  dream. 

"Very  shortly  afterwards  her  son  arrived  unex- 
pectedly from  France.  He  had  been  wounded  in  the 


left  side  of  his  face  and  shoulder,  and  was  wearing 
the  coloured  shirt  of  her  dream,  which  she  had  never 
seen  before,  and  indeed  which  he  had  only  just  bought 
two  or  three  hours  before. 

"Very  similar  to  this  is  the  experience  of  a  North- 
umberland lady  named  Dodd.  In  1915  she  received  a 
card  from  her  husband,  who  was  in  France,  saying 
that  he  was  ill,  but  that  there  was  nothing  to  worry 
about.  She  fretted  a  good  deal,  as  she  felt  sure  he  was 
keeping  the  worst  from  her,  and  making  light  of  his 
illness,  whatever  it  was.  That  same  night  she  had  a 
dream  in  which  she  thought  she  saw  her  husband  at 
home  hopping  about  on  his  right  foot.  In  her  dream 
she  said  to  him,  'I  thought  people  could  not  sing  when 
they  had  been  gassed.' 

"  'I  have  not  been  gassed,  but  my  left  foot  is  very 
sore,'  he  replied. 

' '  The  next  morning  she  related  her  dream  to  a  neigh- 
bour, and  to  use  her  own  words,  they  both  thought 
4  there  was  something  in  it. '  Curiously  enough  a  letter 
soon  afterwards  arrived  from  her  husband,  to  say  that 
he  was  in  a  hospital  in  Liverpool,  suffering  from  septic 
poisoning  in  the  left  ankle  and  foot." 

Saved,  by  a  Vision 

In  many  instances,  the  warnings  seem  to  assume  a 
semi-religious  character,  as  in  the  following,  where  a 
"still,  small  voice"  seemed  to  speak  from  within. 
This  is  particularly  true  after  the  emotional  nature 
has  been  deeply  stirred  by  some  act  of  barbarism — of 
which,  unfortunately,  the  present  war  offers  too  many 
examples. 

In  1870  the  German  Army  pillaged,  murdered  and 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS      169 

raped  even  as  they  do  now.  Only  in  1870  the  world 
would  not  believe  what  every  French  man  and  woman 
knew.  The  officer  commanding  the  Prussians  tried  to 
outrage  a  nun,  and  she  struck  him  dead  at  her  feet, 
being  prepared,  as  all  women  were,  for  the  German. 
She  died  herself  almost  instantly  after,  preferring,  in 
her  proud  fashion,  death  by  her  own  hand  to  dis- 
honour. 

Then,  as  now,  the  German  punished  vicariously. 
Her  youngest  brother,  a  boy  of  fifteen,  was  brought 
to  the  side  of  the  dead  nun,  told  of  her  splendid  crime, 

and  shot.    M.  d'A ,  then  a  prisoner  of  war  at  Mont 

Valerian,  was  sent  for,  and  forced  to  bury  his  sister 
and  brother  in  the  little  convent  garden.  On  July  21, 
1914,  he  was  planting  flowers  on  the  grave,  and  looking 
up  casually  he  saw  beside  him,  standing  hand  in  hand, 
the  dead  nun  and  his  murdered  brother.  They  stood 
regarding  him  at  first  seriously,  and  their  lips  moved — 
but  he  heard  nothing!  Then  both  smiled  on  him,  and 
he  thought  they  spoke  the  name  of  his  elder  son,  who 
had  just  gone  up  for  his  service.  Then  something 
within  him  spoke  distinctly  and  quietly  for  about  five 
minutes,  commanding  him  to  go  instantly  to  a  certain 
friend  of  his,  the  commandant  of  a  vitally  important 
military  centre,  and  tell  him  a  certain  thing  concern- 
ing his  wife,  a  very  beautiful  Alsatian  lady,  but  of 

German  parentage.    M.  d'A was  overcome  with 

horror  at  the  prospect  of  delivering  this  message,  and 
while  he  protested  dumbly  the  vision  passed.  Madame 
had  insisted  on  the  message  being  delivered  and  had 
herself  accompanied  her  husband  to  the  Commandant. 
Instead  of  being  furiously  indignant,  as  they  naturally 
expected,  the  Commandant  was  at  first  speechless,  then 
questioned  them  closely  till  every  word  of  the  ghostly 


170  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

communication  was  in  writing.    "When  it  was  finished 
he  told  them  of  a  singular  dream  he  had  had,  almost 

identical  in  detail  with  M.  d'A 's  vision. 

The  sequel  to  this  story  is,  the  day  before  war  was 
declared,  the  Commandant's  wife  disappeared  and 
with  her  certain  important  papers.  When  she  was 
found  on  the  French  frontier  with  these  in  her  posses- 
sion, she  believed  she  had  stolen  the  plans  for  the 
French  mobilization.  But,  as  her  husband  explained 
to  her  in  the  brief  interval  before  she  paid  the  penalty 
exacted  by  France  for  espionage  in  high  places  or  low, 
these  plans  had  not  been  sent  to  him,  but  to  his  sub- 
ordinate, thanks  to  the  warning  conveyed  by  M. 
d'A . 

A  Fulfilled  Prevision 

In  the  following  instance,  the  soldier's  relative 
(aunt)  seemingly  had  a  premonition  of  her  adopted 
son's  safe  return  in  health;  it  was  accurately  fulfilled. 
In  this  welter  of  tragedy,  it  is  with  pleasure  that  we 
are  enabled  to  finish  the  chapter  with  a  happy  incident 
of  this  character. 

"A  soldier  who  took  part  in  the  Dardanelles  fight- 
ing was  an  orphan,  and  had  been  brought  up  by  his 
aunt,  to  whom  he  was  deeply  attached.  He  wrote  reg- 
ularly to  her  until  one  day  she  received  a  letter  from 
the  War  Office,  saying  that  he  had  been  wounded  and 
had  a  severe  attack  of  dysentery  as  well. 

"Just  then  the  fighting  in  Gallipoli  became  excep- 
tionally severe.  No  news  was  heard  of  him  for  several 
weeks.  Nearly  all  his  mates  had  been  killed,  until  at 
last  his  aunt  began  to  fear  the  worst,  and  gradually 
gave  up  all  hope.  She  was  nearly  heart-broken,  her 
affection  for  him  was  so  great. 


PROPHECIES  AND  PREMONITIONS     171 

"One  morning,  however,  she  came  down  to  break- 
fast cheerful  and  happy.  Questioned  by  her  daughter, 
who  could  not  understand  this  sudden  change  from 
her  recent  gloom  and  sadness,  she  replied: 

"  'I  am  happy  because  I  know  my  boy  is  safe  and 
well.  I  dreamt  he  came  to  my  bedside  last  night,  and 
said  quite  plainly,  "Auntie,  what  are  you  fretting 
about?  I'm  quite  all  right."  I  saw  him  as  clearly  as 
I  see  you  now,  so  I'm  not  going  to  worry  any  more.' 

"Curiously  enough,  the  very  next  day  she  had  a 
letter  to  say  that  her  nephew  was  back  in  England, 
safe  and  well,  though  most  of  his  pals  had  gone  under. 
A  few  days  later  he  came  home  on  leave. 

"  'I  had  no  means  of  writing  to  you,  but  kept  hoping 
and  hoping  that  you  wouldn't  fret  about  me,'  he  said. 
'Perhaps  the  fact  that  I  was  constantly  wishing  this 
had  something  to  do  with  your  dream.*  " 


CHAPTER  Vin 

APPARITIONS  AND  DBEAMS   OF   SOLDIEBS 

I  HAVE  previously  pointed  out  the  fact  that  appari- 
tions, occurring  at  the  moment  of  the  death,  are  fre- 
quent; and  that  the  value  of  some  of  these  cases  is 
very  great,  in  proving  that  something  leaves  man,  at 
or  about  the  moment  of  death,  which  is  capable  of 
manifesting  itself  at  great  distances,  and  hence  is  sep- 
arate or  independent  of  the  physical  body.  It  would 
be  possible  to  give  a  large  number  of  cases  of  this  char- 
acter, but  space  forbids.  The  following  will  at  least 
serve  as  illustrative.  I  will  begin  with  a  case  which 
occurred  soon  after  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war, 
and  is  given  in  Rosa  Stuart's  Dreams  and  Visions  of 
the  War.  It  is  as  follows: — 

A  Vision  Coinciding  With  Death 

A  very  touching  story  was  told  me  by  a  Bournemouth 
wife.  Her  husband,  a  sergeant  in  the  Devons,  went  to 
France  on  July  25,  1915.  She  had  received  letters 
regularly  from  him,  all  of  which  were  very  happy  and 
cheerful,  and  so  she  began  to  be  quite  reassured  in 
her  mind  about  him,  feeling  certain  that  whatsoever 
danger  he  had  to  face  he  would  come  safely  through. 

On  the  evening  of  September  25,  1915,  at  about 
ten  o'clock,  she  was  sitting  on  her  bed  in  her  room  talk- 
ing to  another  girl,  who  was  sharing  it  with  her.  The 

172 


light  was  full  on,  and  neither  of  them  had  as  yet 
thought  of  getting  into  bed,  so  deep  were  they  in  their 
chat  about  the  events  of  the  day  and  the  war. 

And  then  suddenly  there  came  a  silence.  The  wife 
had  broken  off  sharply  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence  and 
sat  there  staring  into  space. 

For,  standing  there  before  her  in  uniform,  was  her 
husband!  For  two  or  three  minutes  she  remained 
there  looking  at  him,  and  she  was  struck  by  the  expres- 
sion of  sadness  in  his  eye.  Getting  up  quickly  she  ad- 
vanced to  the  spot  where  he  was  standing,  but  by  the 
time  she  had  reached  it  the  vision  had  disappeared. 

Though  only  that  morning  the  wife  had  had  a  letter 
saying  her  husband  was  safe  and  well,  she  felt  sure 
that  the  vision  foreboded  evil.  She  was  right.  Soon 
afterwards  she  received  a  letter  from  the  War  Office, 
saying  that  he  had  been  killed  in  the  Battle  of  Loos 
on  September  25,  1915,  the  very  date  she  had  seemed 
to  see  him  stand  beside  her  bed. 

For  the  next  case  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of 
Mrs.  Marie  Russak-Hotchner.  She  has  called  the  case 
that  of — 

Private  Rex 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  stories  was  told  me  re- 
cently by  a  lieutenant  who  had  been  invalided  home  in 
Canada,  a  man  of  fine  family  and  unquestionable 
veracity.  The  names  I  shall  use  in  the  story  are  fic- 
titious, but  the  real  ones  will  be  given  privately  if  cor- 
roboration  of  the  story  is  desired. 

Lieut.  Smith  was  stationed  in  No-man's-land,  and 
one  evening  was  taking  some  of  his  men  from  one  place 
to  another.  They  were  marching  along,  very  fatigued, 


174  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

but  undisturbed  except  from  the  usual  dangers  of  dis- 
tant shell  fire. 

Suddenly  Lieut.  Smith  saw  one  of  his  men,  Private 
Rex,  begin  to  lag  a  little  behind  the  rest,  and  judged 
that  he  might  be  ill.  Watching  him,  he  saw  his  pace 
continue  to  slacken  until  he  was  marching  in  line  with 
himself.  For  a  private  to  fall  out  and  march  beside 
his  officer  was,  of  course,  unusual,  and  so  the  latter 
challenged  the  procedure.  He  asked  the  private  if  he 
were  ill,  but  he  replied  in  the  negative ;  he  asked  if  he 
were  cold,  but  the  private  again  said  "No." 
I  But  Lieut.  Smith  clearly  saw  that  something  was 
wrong  with  the  man,  and  he  therefore  stepped  closer 
to  him  and  asked  him  if  he  were  hungry.  The  private 
replied,  "A  little."  The  officer  had  a  package  of 
malted  milk  tablets  in  his  pocket,  and  gave  him  some. 
As  he  took  them  the  officer  noted  that  his  hand  was 
icy  cold  and  that  he  was  very  pale. 

Just  at  that  moment  Lieut.  Smith's  attention  was 
diverted  by  the  necessity  of  giving  some  commands  to 
his  men  and  of  walking  to  another  position.  When  he 
returned  to  his  former  place,  he  observed  that  Private 
Rex  was  no  longer  there,  but  as  there  had  not  been 
time  for  him  to  return  to  his  own  squad,  the  officer 
thought  he  might  have  fallen  because  ill,  or  possibly 
because  wishing  to  desert.  So  he  halted  the  regiment, 
and  went  back  some  distance  to  look  for  the  missing 
man.  Thinking  there  was  some  trouble,  a  junior  officer 
came  running  to  Lieut.  Smith  to  give  him  assistance. 
The  latter  told  him  how  Private  Rex  had  fallen  out  of 
his  place,  seeming  to  be  ill,  accepted  the  food  tablets, 
and  then  suddenly  disappeared,  and  the  officer  sug- 
gested that  a  search  should  be  made  for  him. 

The  junior  officer,  in  great  astonishment,  replied 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS 

that  there  must  be  some  mistake,  as  Private  Rex  had 
been  killed  in  battle  and  he  had  attended  the  burial 
three  days  previously.  He  also  reminded  Lieut.  Smith 
that  he  also  had  been  present.  The  lieutenant  then 
recalled  the  fact  which,  because  of  the  stress  of  subse- 
quent fighting  and  of  the  death  of  so  many  others,  he 
had  momentarily  forgotten. 

But  Lieut.  Smith  told  the  second  officer,  as  he  re- 
peated emphatically  to  me,  that  he  had  certainly  seen, 
talked  to,  and  touched  Private  Rex  that  evening;  that 
it  was  Private  Rex,  and  no  other,  who  walked  beside 
him ;  that  he  knew  him  well,  and  that  it  was  truly  his 
icy  hand  into  which  he  placed  the  tablet  of  food,  and 
his  pale  face  into  which  he  had  looked  as  he  asked  him 
the  questions  about  his  health. 

Lieut.  Smith  said  that  it  was  quite  a  common  occur- 
rence for  men  in  the  war  zone  to  see  the  ghosts  of 
their  comrades  who  had  been  killed.  And  he  added, 
"It  takes  away  all  fear  of  death,  for  I  know  that  Pri- 
vate Rex  lives,  though  dead." 

The  following  group  of  cases  are  from  the  Journal 
of  the  English  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  and,  it 
will  be  seen,  are  very  well  authenticated.  They  are 
(usually)  preceded  by  editorial  remarks  by  the  editor, 
Mrs.  Salter.  The  first  case  was  published  in  the 
Journal  for  May- June,  1917.  This  is  the  incident: — 

A  Dream  Vision 

March  15,  1917. 

My  son,  Lieut.  A L J ,  of  the  1st  King's 

Shropshire  L.  L,  was  killed  at  daybreak  on  Saturday, 
April  22nd,  1916. 


176  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

At  daybreak  on  the  next  morning,  Easter  Sunday, 
about  24  hours  after  his  death  took  place,  when  I  was 
lying  half  awake  and  half  asleep,  I  had  the  vision  or 
dream,  an  account  of  which  follows. 

I  saw  two  soldiers  in  khaki,  standing  beside  a  pile 
of  clothing  and  accoutrements  which,  in  some  way,  I 
knew  to  be  Alec's,  and  my  first  feeling  was  one  of 
anger  and  annoyance  that  they  should  be  meddling 
with  his  things,  for  they  were  apparently  looking 
through  them  and  arranging  them.  Then  one  of  them 
took  up  a  khaki  shirt  which  was  wrapped  around  some- 
thing so  as  to  form  a  kind  of  roll.  He  took  hold  of  one 
end  of  it  and  let  the  rest  drop  so  as  it  unrolled  itself 
and  a  pair  of  heavy,  extremely  muddy  boots  fell  out 
and  banged  heavily  on  the  floor,  and  something  else 
fell  which  made  a  metallic  jingle.  I  thought  "That  is 
his  revolver,"  but  immediately  afterwards  thought 
"No,  it  is  too  light  to  be  his  revolver,  which  would 
have  made  more  of  a  clang." 

As  these  things  fell  out  on  to  the  floor  the  two  men 
laughed,  but  a  sad  wistful  kind  of  laugh  with  no  sem- 
blance of  mirth  in  it.  And  then  the  words,  "Alec  is 
dead  and  they  are  going  through  his  kit,"  were  most 
clearly  borne  in  on  my  mind.  They  were  not  spoken 
and  I  heard  no  voice,  but  they  were  just  as  clear  as  if  I 
had  done  so.  And  then  I  became  fully  awake,  these 
words  repeating  themselves  in  my  mind  and  with  the 
fullest  conviction  of  their  truth  which  I  never  lost.  I 
suppose  I  still  tried  to  persuade  myself  that  it  might 
not  be  true,  but  it  was  useless  and  when  the  official 
telegram  arrived  it  only  confirmed  what  I  already 
knew. 

G J , 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  177 

In  a  letter  of  the  same  date,  March  15,  1917,  Dr. 
J adds  the  following  comments  on  his  statement: 

.  .  .  Two  points  have  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  esti- 
mating the  importance  of  the  dream  as  an  intimation 
of  my  son's  death  and  not  as  a  mere  coincidence. 

(1)  He  went  out  to  the  front  in  October,  1914,  and 
was  there  continuously  (with  three  short  leaves)  until 
his  death  on  April  22,  1916 — Easter  Saturday.    Dur- 
ing these  eighteen  months  I  never  had  any  dream  or 
any  impression  of  his  being  in  serious  danger,  although 
I  often  knew  that  he  was  in  the  midst  of  hard  fighting 
and  he  was  wounded  in  three  places  in  August,  1915, 
at  Hooge. 

(2)  At  the  time  when  I  had  the  dream  I  was  under 
the  impression  that  his  battalion  was  resting  and  that 
they  would  not  be  in  the  fighting  line  until  the  middle 
of  the  week.     Hence,  my  mind  was  quite  easy  about 
him  and  I  was  not  feeling  at  all  anxious.    In  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  events  they  were  not  due  in  the  trenches 
until   the  "Wednesday,   but   they   were   unexpectedly 
called  upon  on  the  evening  of  Good  Friday  to  move  up 
at  once  to  recapture  a  trench  which  had  been  taken  by 
the  Germans  some  days  before.    It  was  after  having 
accomplished  this,  and  whilst  the  position  was  being 
consolidated,  that  he  was  killed. 

I  had  never  in  my  life  had  any  dream  so  vivid  as  this 
one  was,  and  when  I  saw  in  the  Sunday  papers  that 
his  battalion  had  accomplished  this  "fine  feat,"  as 
they  called  it,  I  had  no  doubt  whatever  that  my  boy 
was  dead.  "When  the  official  telegram  came  on  Wednes- 
day I  felt  that  it  was  hardly  necessary  to  open  it.  ... 

I  shall  always  think  (as  a  nephew  does  to  whom  I 
told  my  dream  on  Sunday  afternoon)  that  this  vision 


178  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

was  Alec's  way  of  letting  me  know  what  had  happened. 

A  minor  point  that  may  be  worth  noticing  is  that 
when  I  heard  the  metallic  clink  when  the  shirt  un- 
rolled and  let  its  contents  fall  on  the  floor,  I  at  first 
thought  "That  is  his  revolver,"  but  then  immediately 
thought  the  noise  was  too  "jingly"  to  be  made  by  the 
fall  of  a  heavy  Colt  such  as  he  had.  When  his  things 
came  home,  however,  I  found  that  instead  of  a  heavy 
Colt  he  had  a  light  automatic  pistol  which,  in  falling, 
would  have  made  exactly  such  a  sound  as  I  heard. 

I  do  not  suppose  that  his  kit  was  actually  being  gone 
through  at  the  time  of  my  dream,  nor  do  I  think  that 
it  makes  much  difference  whether  it  was  so  or  not. 
But  the  regimental  surgeon  (since  killed  himself)  who 
came  to  see  me  early  in  June  told  me  that  he  believed 
that  they  really  were  going  through  Alec's  things 
about  the  time  of  my  dream. 

G—  J . 

In  a  subsequent  letter  he  writes : 

March  25,  1917. 

.  .  .  The  only  person  whom  I  told  the  dream  to,  be- 
fore the  arrival  of  the  War  Office  telegram,  was  my 
nephew  who  was  here  on  Sunday,  the  23rd  April 
(1916). 

I  enclose  the  letter  which  he  sent  me  when  he  had 
definite  news  of  Alec's  death. 

I  also  enclose  a  copy  of  part  of  a  letter  which  the 
regimental  surgeon  (since  killed)  wrote  to  his  father. 
I  do  this  in  order  to  show  the  conditions  under  which 
the  attack  was  made,  especially  as  to  mud. 

One  does  not  want  to  read  too  much  into  such  an 
experience,  but  I  have  often  thought  that  what  I  saw 
had  a  certain  amount  of  symbolism  in  it.  The  fact  that 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  179 

the  boots  which  fell  out  of  the  rolled-up  shirt  were  so 
exceedingly  muddy,  and  that  the  other  thing  which 
dropped  out  was,  as  I  at  first  thought,  his  revolver, 
point  to  the  terribly  muddy  condition  of  the  attack, 
and  to  the  fact  that  it  was  an  attack,  for  otherwise  the 
revolver  would  not  have  been  carried.  But  this  is  a 
minor  point. 

G J . 

The  letter  of  Dr.  J 's  nephew,  Mr.  N.  C.  R- 


to  which  reference  is  made  above,  began  as  follows : 

May  4,  1916. 

I  hear  Alec  has  died  at  Ypres.  Your  dream  has 
come  true.  Alec  appears  to  have  been  trying  to  let 
you  know.  .  .  . 

N.  C.  R . 

The  reference  in*  the  above  letter  to  Dr.  J—    -'s 

dream  implies  that  Mr.  R had  heard  of  it  before 

he  heard  of  Lieut.  J — — 's  death,  but  we  asked  also 

for  an  independent  statement  from  Mr.  R that  Dr. 

J had  related  his  dream  to  him  on  the  day  on 

which  it  occurred,  April  23,  1916,  before  Dr.  J— 
himself  knew  of  its  verification.  In  reply  Mr.  R— 
wrote  as  follows : 

April  3,  1917. 

I  have  been  asked  by  my  uncle,  Dr.  G—    -  J ,  to 

send  you  a  statement  to  the  effect  that  he  told  me  of 
the  dream  or  vision  which  he  had  of  his  son's  death 
before  actual  confirmation. 

This  I  can  do. 

I  was  spending  the  afternoon  of  Easter  Sunday  last 
year  (April  23, 1916)  at  his  house,  and  while  at  tea  he 


180  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

came  in  from  paying  a  professional  visit  somewhere. 

After  tea  lie  spoke  to  me  of  his  dream.  I  regret  to 
say  I  cannot  remember  all  he  said,  but  I  do  recollect 
his  saying  he  saw  two  officers  looking  over  and  pack- 
ing his  son's  kit.  He  was  angry  at  their  meddling,  but 
it  suddenly  dawned  upon  him  that  his  son  was  dead. 
Whether  A—  -  J appeared  in  the  dream  I  forget. 

Some  days  afterwards  I  heard  that  A—  -  J—  -  was 
dead,  confirmation  having  reached  him,  Dr.  J — — ,  on 
a  date  after  the  23rd  April. 

N.  C.  B . 

As  regards  the  circumstances  under  which  Lieut. 

J lost  his  life  we  print  below  extracts  from  the 

letter  to  which  Dr.  J—    -  refers  on  March  25,  written 
by  the  regimental  surgeon: 

April  27,  1916. 

.  .  .  You  will  have  seen  by  the  papers  about  the  gal- 
lant attack  the  Btn.  made  the  other  night  to  retake 
some  trenches  lost  by  another  Btn.  It  was  as  the  Army 
Commander  said,  "A  magnificent  feat  of  arms,"  and 
you  can  guess  what  the  higher  command  thought  of 
it  when  they  honoured  the  regiment  by  mentioning 
them  by  name — an  honour  which  has  only  been  paid 
twice  all  the  time  out  here.  Unless  one  is  on  the  spot, 
though,  one  could  not  realize  the  conditions  under 
which  the  attack  was  made  or  the  apparently  hopeless 
job  it  seemed.  I  don't  think  any  other  Btn.  could  have 
done  it.  The  mud,  to  take  one  point  only,  was  so  deep 
that  the  men  had  to  throw  themselves  down  and  crawl 
—putting  their  rifles  and  bombs  ahead  a  few  feet  and 
then  struggling  up  to  them.  Of  course  the  rifles  were 
so  covered  with  mud  that  they  could  not  shoot,  so  the 
men  just  struggled  on  until  they  could  use  the  bayonet. 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  181 

We  had  men  utterly  engulfed  in  the  mud  and  suffo- 
cated. It  was  a  glorious  achievement,  and  the  cost 

was  heavy.  .  .  .  J who  used  to  write  "At  the 

Front"  in  Pimch — was  shot  through  the  heart  gal- 
lantly superintending  his  company  consolidating  the 
captured  position.  As  dawn  broke  he  was  so  busy  with 
so  much  to  see  to,  that  he  would  not  take  cover,  but 
kept  walking  from  end  to  end  of  the  trench  over  the 
top  to  save  time.  He  was  picked  off  by  a  sniper. 

T.I. 

In  a  letter  to  Dr.  J from  one  of  Lieut.  J 's 


fellow-officers,  giving  an  account  of  his  death,  the 
muddy  condition  of  the  ground  is  again  emphasized. 
He  writes : 

May  7,  1916. 

...  As  you  know  the  conditions  were  simply  awful. 
Pitch  dark,  and  wading  up  to  our  waists  in  mud.  .  .  . 

It  appears  from  the  evidence  given  above  that  at 

the  time  when  Dr.  J had  the  dream  which  he 

regarded  as  an  intimation  of  his  son's  death,  Lieut. 

J had  been  dead  about  twenty-four  hours.  It 

is  a  strong  point  in  favour  of  the  assumption  that 
some  other  factor  than  chance-coincidence  was  in- 
volved, that  during  the  year  and  a  half  that  his  son 

had  been  at  the  front  Dr.  J had  had  no  other 

similar  impression  about  him,  and  that  on  April  23, 

1916,  he  had  reason  to  believe  that  Lieut.  J was 

temporarily  out  of  danger. 

If  it  is  the  fact  that  Lieut.  J 's  kit  was  being 

examined  about  the  time  of  Dr.  J 's  dream,  it 

may  be  that  he  received  an  impression  of  an  actual 
scene  which  took  place.  But  it  seems  more  probable, 
as  he  suggests,  that  the  dream  was  a  piece  of  symbolic 


182  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

imagery  representing  the  fact,  telepathically  conveyed 
to  him,  that  his  son  had  been  killed  in  the  attack  on  the 
previous  day. 

We  are  indebted  to  Dr.  J for  the  trouble  he 

has  taken  in  providing  us  with  evidence  for  which  we 
asked. 

Another  Dream  Vision 

The  next  case  was  published  in  the  S.  P.  E.  Journal, 
July,  1916.  The  editor  writes  :— 

The  following  case  was  first  brought  to  our  notice 
by  a  paragraph  in  the  daily  press  on  June  6,  1916,  in 
which  it  was  stated  that : 

The  sister  of  Seaman  George  William  M ,  of 

Peterborough,  one  of  the  men  who  went  down  with  the 
Queen  Mary,  had  a  realistic  dream  last  Wednesday 
(the  day  the  Queen  Mary  was  lost).  She  was  lying  ill 
in  bed  when  she  thought  that  her  brother  came  to  her 
bedside,  and  although  she  spoke  to  him  repeatedly  he 
would  not  answer.  He  appeared  quite  well  and  happy. 

Subsequently,  in  reply  to  enquiries,  we  received  the 
following  account  from  the  percipient,  Mrs.  B—  — : 

June  19,  1916. 

...  In  reference  to  my  dream — as  it  was  published 
in  the  papers,  but  it  was  not  a  dream,  it  was  a  vision. 
I  was  very  ill  at  the  time.  It  was  the  afternoon  of  the 
day  of  the  battle  that  I  saw  my  brother.  I  was  taken 
worse  and  thought  I  was  going  to  die.  I  was  with  my 
brother  on  his  ship  and  thought  he  was  so  happy  and 
singing,  and  then  it  changed  and  he  was  at  home  on 
leave.  I  thought  I  repeatedly  spoke  to  him  each  time 
but  he  did  not  speak  to  me.  I  knew  I  was  ill,  and 
thought  he  would  not  speak  to  me  because  I  was  dis- 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIEES  183 

figured.  I  asked  my  mother  if  he  had  gone  back  and 
she  said  he  had  not  been  home.  I  said  I  knew  he  had, 
it  seemed  so  real.  I  was  very  much  upset  because  he 
would  not  speak  to  me.  I  did  not  hear  of  the  sinking 
of  the  Queen  Mary  until  a  week  after,  as  I  was  too  ill 
for  my  mother  to  tell  me.  ...  It  would  be  just  about 
the  time  when  the  ship  went  down  that  I  saw  my 
brother,  as  it  was  late  in  the  afternoon  on  Wednesday, 
May  31. 

On  June  29, 1916,  the  Secretary  of  the  S.  P.  B.  went 

to  Peterborough  and  called  upon  Mrs.  B and  her 

mother,  Mrs.  M ,  who  kindly  answered  all  the  ques- 
tions she  put  to  them.  Their  evidence,  as  noted,  sum- 
marized by  the  Secretary  at  the  time,  and  confirmed 
by  their  signatures,  was  as  follows : 

On  May  31  Mrs.  E- was  suffering  from  erysipe- 
las, and  had  been  ill  from  the  previous  Friday.  About 
5  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  she  "felt  something  snap 
inside  her,  and  part  of  herself  seemed  to  have  gone 
out  of  her;  she  thought  she  was  dying."  Then  she 
seemed  to  be  on  a  ship,  or  very  near  it ;  she  could  see 
the  sailors  moving  about,  and  heard  them  singing;  they 
were  very  happy.  She  spoke  to  her  brother  on  the 
ship;  he  wouldn't  answer.  She  called  for  a  scarf  he 
had  given  her,  so  that  she  could  hide  her  face,  as  she 
was  disfigured.  Then  the  scene  changed,  she  was  at 
home,  her  brother  was  at  home,  she  spoke  to  him,  but 
he  wouldn't  answer.  She  cried,  thinking  it  was  be- 
cause she  was  disfigured.  The  vision  went.  She  was 
still  very  much  upset  because  he  wouldn't  speak  to 
her.  She  asked  her  mother  if  her  brother  had  gone 
back. 


184  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

She  had  never  had  a  vision  or  a  dream  of  this  kind 
before. 

(Signed)     F E B 

June  29,  1916. 

Mrs.  M said  her  daughter  had  been  "light- 
headed on  and  off"  during  her  illness,  but  that  at  the 
time  of  the  vision  she  seemed  "listless  and  blank." 

The  news  of  the  Naval  Battle,  including  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  loss  of  H.  M.  S.  Queen  Mary,  was 
published  on  Saturday  morning,  June  3,  1916.  In  the 
casualty  list,  which  appeared  a  few  days  later  (our 
reference  is  the  Daily  Telegraph,  June  8),  the  name  of 

G.  W.  M ,  A.B.,  was  included  in  the  crew  of  the 

Queen  Mary. 

It  is  stated  in  Admiral  Sir  John  Jellicoe's  de- 
spatch on  the  battle  published  in  the  press,  July  7, 
1916,  that  the  action  began  at  3.8  P.  M.  (Greenwich 
mean  time)  on  May  31;  and,  in  the  various  reports  by 
observers,  that  the  Queen  Mary  sank  soon  afterwards. 
In  an  article  in  the  Daily  Telegraph  on  June  6,  Mr. 
Hurd,  indicating  approximately  the  course  which  the 
battle  took,  says : 

Quite  early  in  the  action  the  Queen  Mary,  by  an  un- 
fortunate mischance,  or  good  German  gunnery,  was 
hit,  and  sank  in  a  few  minutes.  ...  It  should  be  em- 
phasized that  this  misfortune  occurred  almost  imme- 
diately after  the  action  opened. 

Thus,  it  will  be  observed  that  the  coincidence  in  time 
between  the  hallucination,  which  occurred  about  5 
P.  M.,  summer  time,  and  the  death  of  Seaman  G.  W. 

M ,  which  occurred  soon  after  4.48,  summer  time, 

was  very  close. 


APPAEITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  185 

It  is  chiefly  owing  to  this  coincidence  in  time  that  we 
print  the  case,  contrary  to  our  practice  of  excluding 
hallucinations  occurring  during  illness  where  delirium 
is  present.  The  evidence  is  further  strengthened  by 
the  following  considerations:  (1)  the  hallucination 
seems  to  have  been  the  only  one  which  assumed  defi- 
nite form  during  the  illness;  (2)  it  was  certainly  the 
only  one  described  by  the  percipient  during  this  time ; 
and  (3)  it  was  unique  in  her  experience. 

These  points  will  be  apparent  from  the  evidence  on 
the  medical  aspect  of  the  case,  kindly  contributed,  in 
answer  to  our  enquiries,  by  Dr.  H.  L ,  of  Peter- 
borough, who  was  attending  the  percipient.  The  ques- 
tions which  were  put  to  him  are  given  below  in  square 
brackets : 

[How  long  was  the  percipient  delirious  and  was  the 
delirium  intermittent1?] 

From  Monday  night,  May  29,  until  the  end  of  the 
week.  Yes;  she  appeared  to  ramble  and  say  "queer 
things"  (the  mother's  report  to  me)  only  at  night.  In 
the  morning  or  afternoon  when  I  saw  her  she  seemed 
clear  in  her  mind. 

[Was  this  particular  hallucination  described  to  you 
before  the  news  of  the  Naval  Battle  on  May  31  was 
known  to  the  public?] 

I  cannot  fix  the  day,  but  I  can  say  positively  that  I 

was  told  of  it,  both  by  Mrs.  M and  Mrs.  B , 

long  before  the  latter  had  any  information  of  the 

Naval  Battle  or  the  death  of  young  M .  Mrs. 

B did  not  know  anything  about  the  Naval  Battle, 

etc.,  until  a  full  week  after  it  had  occurred,  as  I  gave 
strict  orders  that  she  was  not  to  be  told.  About  a  week 
after  the  Battle,  say  Wednesday,  June  7,  she  picked  up 
a  paper  within  her  reach  and  saw  the  list  of  officers 


186  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

and  men  on  the  Queen  Mary.  It  was  many  days  before 
this  that  I  was  informed  of  the  vision,  both  by  the 
mother  and  Mrs  B . 

Later,  Dr.  L wrote  as  follows : 

June  15,  1916. 

My  distinct  impression  is  that  the  hallucination  was 

mentioned  to  Mrs.   M before   the  Naval   Battle 

was  known  of.  But  I  really  cannot  fix  the  date  when  it 
was  told  to  me.  All  I  can  say  is  that,  when  I  was  told 

of  the  hallucination,  I  questioned  Mrs.  B ,  and  she 

told  me  quite  simply  that  she  had  seen  her  brother  on 
the  deck  of  his  ship,  that  he  looked  quite  as  usual,  but 
never  spoke  a  word.  She  told  me  this  many  days  be- 
fore she  knew  of  the  Battle,  but  I  cannot  fix  the  date. 

[Were  any  other  hallucinations  described  to  you 
during  the  illness?  And  have  you  heard  of  any  ex- 
periences of  the  same  kind  that  Mrs.  B ever  had  I] 

No,  only  that  she  said  such  ''queer  things." 

I  am  quite  sure  that  neither  Mrs.  M nor  Mrs. 

B have  ever  had  any  other  previous  experience 

of  the  kind.  They  took  no  interest  in  the  subject  when 
I  was  first  informed  of  it,  which  was  early,  and  long 
before  anything  appeared  in  the  papers. 

(Signed)    H.  L ,  M.  B.  (Edin.),  etc. 

A  Curious  Apparition 

The  next  incident  appeared  in  the  Journal,  Feb- 
ruary-March, 1917.  Editorially,  Mrs.  Salter  writes : — 

We  print  below  a  report  of  an  apparition  seen  by 
Mrs.  S.  J ,  living  at  Enfield,  Gateshead,  of  her  son- 
in-law,  Lieut.  G.  E.  B ,  Durham  Light  Infantry, 

shortly  after  he  had  been  wounded  in  France,  but  be- 
fore any  news  of  his  being  wounded  had  reached  his 
family. 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  187 

It  will  be  observed  that  Mrs.  J did  not  mention 

her  experience  to  any  one  until  after  she  knew  of  its 
veridical  character  but  we  have  been  able  by  means  of 
certain  corroborative  evidence  to  establish  a  very 
strong  probability  that  Mrs.  J—  -'s  recollection  of 
what  took  place  is  substantially  accurate.  Under  these 
circumstances  we  feel  justified  in  putting  the  case  on 
record,  all  the  more  that  it  presents  one  curious  fea- 
ture which  will  interest  all  who  concern  themselves 
with  the  psychological  peculiarities  of  these  phe- 
nomena. 

Our  earliest  information  was  contained  in  a  letter 

from  Lieut.  B ,  as  follows : 

November  2,  1916. 

The  following  presents  an  unusual  feature  to  me — 
but  possibly  you  can  explain  it. 

My  age  is  34. 

I  was  wounded  in  France  July  24th,  1916,  3.30  p.  m. 

Between  1  and  2  a.  m.,  July  26th,  1916,  I  appeared 

to  Mrs.  S.  J (my  wife's  mother)  at  this  address, 

waking  her  from  sleep. 

The  physical  appearance  corresponded  with  that  of 
a  photo  taken  when  I  was  three  years  old — the  head 
was  bandaged,  showing  only  forehead,  eyes,  nose, 
mouth,  and  a  little  of  the  chin. 

Except  for  the  age  and  apparent  height  (only  head 
was  seen  clearly) — this  was  the  condition  I  was  in,  and 
I  was  in  a  hospital  at  Boulogne — to  the  best  of  my 
recollection  asleep,  and  of  course  with  2  days'  growth 
of  beard. 

The  apparition  was  taken  for  my  son  "in  the  flesh" 
at  first  and  was  asked  what  was  the  matter.  Mrs. 
J then  recognized  me — I  smiled  and  vanished. 


188  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

The  War  Office  telegram  announcing  the  casualty 
was  received  at  9  p.  m.,  July  26th. 

Mrs.  J did  not  know  me  until  I  was  about  19 — 

at  which  time  and  ever  since  I  have  had  a  small  mous- 
tache— and  she  always  thinks  of  me  as  grown  up — 
never  as  a  child.  In  these  circumstances,  can  you  ex- 
plain why  I  should  appear  as  a  child  and  not  in  my 
most  easily  recognizable  form? 

That  I  appeared  to  Mrs.  J I  can  understand  as 

she  is  more  psychic  than  my  wife. 

E.  M.  J . 

In  reply  to  this  letter  we  wrote  to  Lieut.  B—  -  ask- 
ing for  a  detailed  report  by  Mrs.  J herself  and  a 

corroborative  statement,  if  obtainable,  from  some  per- 
son to  whom  she  had  related  her  experience  before  the 
news  came  that  Lieut.  B was  wounded.  We  re- 
ceived an  answer  from  Mrs.  B as  follows : 

November  5,  1916. 

My  husband  has  just  returned  to  duty.  ...  I  en- 
close a  full  account  written  by  Mrs.  J ,  of  her  ex- 
perience of  July  26th.  This  corresponds  with  her  de- 
scription to  me  on  August  5th. 

I  see  that  it  is  unfortunate,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  "evidence,"  that  she  told  no  one  before  this  date. 
I  can  only  say  that  as  far  as  we  ourselves  are  con- 
cerned, this  makes  no  difference,  as  we  do  not  admit 
the  possibility  of  her  altering  the  facts,  even  involun- 
tarily. She  is  particularly  clear-headed  and  well- 
balanced,  and  when  relating  one  or  two  similar  experi- 
ences, I  have  never  known  her  to  vary  in  the  accounts 
in  the  slightest  degree. 

I  am  not  surprised  that  my  husband  should  appear 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  189 

to  her, — they  have  often  discussed  such  things,  and 
are  much  in  sympathy — though  the  "least-familiar" 
form  has  puzzled  us  all.  .  .  . 

MAEGABET  E.  B . 

(Statement  by  Mrs.  J ,  enclosed  in  Mrs.  B 's 

letter  of  November  5,  1916.) 

During  the  early  morning  of  Wednesday,  July  26th, 
1916,  I  woke  from  sleep,  with  the  idea  that  some  one 
was  in  my  room.  I  opened  my  eyes  to  absolute  dark- 
ness, but  at  the  right  side  of  my  bed  stood  a  misty 
figure,  which  I  at  first  took  for  my  little  grandson,  and 
I  asked  him  why  he  was  there.  No  answer  came,  but 
the  face  became  more  distinct,  and  I  saw  it  resembled 
a  photograph  of  my  son-in-law,  taken  when  he  was 
about  three  years  old.  In  the  photograph  one  can  see 
short  curls,  but  in  my  vision  the  lower  part  of  the 
forehead,  eyebrows,  eyes,  nose,  mouth  and  part  of  chin 
and  neck  were  hidden  by  white  wrappings.  As  I  looked 
and  wondered,  the  mouth  expanded  into  a  smile,  and 
the  appearance  vanished,  the  room  being  still  in  dark- 
ness. My  grandson  had  not  been  quite  well  the  pre- 
vious day,  and  my  first  thought  was  to  go  and  see  if 
he  were  worse,  but  as  I  knew  his  mother  had  settled 
to  sleep  in  his  room,  I  decided  not  to  risk  alarming 
her. 

I  did  not  mention  the  occurrence  to  any  one,  as  we 
only  had  servants  in  the  house,  and  naturally  I  did  not 
want  to  say  anything  to  my  daughter  at  once.  I  made 
up  my  mind  to  wait  until  she  had  had  a  letter  from 
her  husband  of  later  date  than  July  26th,  and  then  tell 
her  how  anxious  I  had  felt. 

The  W.  0.  wire  came  on  the  evening  of  July  26th, 
and  in  the  rush  and  hurry  of  her  departure  I  had  no 


190  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAE 

chance  to  tell  her  until  she  came  home  on  August  5tH 
for  a  couple  of  nights,  leaving  her  husband  in  the  hos- 
pital. When  I  described  what  I  had  seen,  she  told  me 
that  his  head  and  neck  were  bandaged  in  that  way. 

I  could  understand  his  appearing  to  me  as  he  looks 
normally,  as  we  had  been  great  friends,  and  I  have 
made  my  home  with  them  for  some  years.  The  puzzle 
is  why  he  should  appear  to  me  as  a  young  child. 

E M.  J . 

For  the  next  cases  I  am  indebted  to  M.  Flammarion. 


'A  Dream  Vision 

"It  was  during  the  great  war,  my  fiance  was  a  sol- 
dier in  the  Army  of  the  Rhine — if  I  do  not  mistake — 
and  for  a  long  time  we  had  had  no  news  of  him.  Dur- 
ing the  night  of  the  23d  of  August  I  had  a  singular 
dream  which  tormented  me,  but  to  which  I  did  not  at- 
tach much  importance.  I  found  myself  in  a  hospital 
ward,  in  the  midst  of  which  was  a  kind  of  a  table  on 
which  my  fiance  was  lying.  His  right  arm  was  bare, 
and  a  severe  wound  could  be  seen  near  the  right  shoul- 
der; two  physicians,  a  Sister  of  Charity,  and  myself 
were  near  him.  All  at  once  he  looked  at  me  with  his 
large  eyes,  and  said  to  me:  'Do  you  still  love  me?' 
Some  days  later  I  learned  from  the  mother  of  my 
fiance  that  he  had  been  mortally  wounded  in  the  right 
shoulder,  and  that  he  had  died  on  the  23d  of  August. 
A  Sister  of  Charity  who  had  nursed  him  was  the  first 
person  to  tell  us  of  his  death.  The  impression  is  still 
as  vivid  in  my  mind  as  though  I  had  dreamed  it  only 
yesterday. ' ' 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  191 

A  Vision  of  Death 

"My  uncle  was  sergeant  in  the  Second  Regiment  of 
Infantry  when  war  was  declared.  He  fought  in  the 
first  battles,  was  taken  prisoner  to  Mayence,  and  thence 
to  Torgau,  where  he  remained  nine  or  ten  months. 

"On  Low  Sunday,  one  of  his  comrades  invited  him 
to  go  into  town  in  the  afternoon.  He  preferred  to  re- 
main in  camp  in  his  casemate,  saying  to  his  friend  that 
he  was  not  in  good  spirits,  but  not  knowing  himself 
what  his  sadness  could  be  attributed  to.  Being  left 
alone,  or  almost  alone,  he  threw  himself,  entirely 
dressed,  upon  his  bed,  and  slept  profoundly.  As  soon 
as  he  was  asleep  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  in  his 
father's  house,  and  that  his  mother  was  dying  on  a 
bed.  He  saw  his  aunts  caring  for  his  mother  until  she 
died,  about  three  o'clock.  Then  he  awoke,  and  found 
that  it  had  been  only  a  dream. 

'  *  When  his  friend  returned  at  six  o  'clock  in  the  eve- 
ning he  told  him  what  he  had  seen  during  his  sleep,  and 
he  added :  *  I  am  convinced  that  my  mother  died  today 
about  three  o  'clock. ' 

"He  was  laughed  at  for  this  idea,  but  a  letter  re- 
ceived from  his  brother  confirmed  the  sad  news. 

' '  I  think  I  ought  to  add  that  the  dead  woman  was  in 
a  dying  state  about  three  o'clock." 

Apparition  Seen  by  a  Child 

"On  May  31,  my  eldest  son,  who  had  enlisted  as  a 
volunteer  six  months  before,  at  Valence,  in  the  First 
Hussars,  was  taking  part  in  the  military  manoeuvres 
in  the  country,  which  were  shared  in  by  his  regiment. 
Being  the  foremost  man  of  the  advance  guard,  he  was 
riding  slowly,  observing  the  country  occupied  by  the 


192  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

enemy,  when  suddenly,  out  of  an  ambush  formed  on 
the  edge  of  a  narrow  part  of  the  road,  came  a  shot 
which  struck  my  unhappy  son  full  in  the  breast.  His 
death  was  almost  immediate. 

''The  involuntary  author  of  this  fatal  accident,  see- 
ing his  comrade  drop  his  reins  and  fall  forward  on  the 
neck  of  his  horse,  rushed  forward  to  help  him,  and  he 
heard  the  words  the  dying  man  uttered  with  his  last 
sigh:  'You  have  done  me  an  ill  turn;  .  .  .  but  I  for- 
give you.  .  .  .  For  God  and  our  country  always!  .  .  . 
Present!'.  .  .  and  so  he  died. 

"Now,  this  same  day,  May  13,  about  half  past  nine 
in  the  evening,  while  my  wife  was  bustling  about  her 
household  affairs,  our  little  girl,  then  about  two-and-a- 
half  years  old,  came  up  to  her  mother  and  said,  in  her 
baby-talk:  *  Mamma,  look  godpapa'  (my  eldest  was 
his  sister's  god-father);  'see  mamma — see  godpapa! 
I  am  playing  with  him ! ' 

"  'Yes,  yes,  my  darling,  play  away,'  said  her  mother, 
busy  and  attaching  no  importance  to  the  words  of  the 
child. 

"But  the  little  thing,  hurt  by  her  mother's  indiffer- 
ence, insisted  on  attracting  her  attention,  and  went  on : 
'  But,  mamma,  come  and  look  at  godpapa.  .  .  .  Look  at 
him — there  he  is!  Oh,  how  smartly  he  is  dressed!' 

' '  Then  my  wife  remarked  that  as  the  child  spoke  she 
became,  so  to  speak,  transfigured.  She  was  excited  by 
this  at  first,  but  soon  forgot  what  had  passed.  It  lasted 
only  a  few  moments,  and  it  was  not  until  two  or  three 
days  later  that  she  remembered  these  details. 

"A  little  before  noon  we  received  a  telegram  telling 
us  of  the  terrible  accident  which  had  befallen  our  be- 
loved son,  and  subsequently  I  learned  that  his  death 
took  place  almost  at  eight  o'clock." 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  193 

Vision  Coinciding  With  Death 

"Mezieres,  my  native  village,  had  been  destroyed  bj> 
a  bombardment  which  lasted  only  thirty-six  hours,  but 
made  many  victims.  Among  these  was  the  little 
daughter  of  our  landlord,  who  was  cruelly  wounded. 
She  was  eleven  or  twelve  years  of  age.  At  that  time 
I  was  fifteen,  and  very  often  played  with  Leontine — 
that  was  her  name. 

"About  the  beginning  of  March  I  went  to  pass  a  few 
days  at  Domchery.  Before  I  left  home  I  knew  that  the 
poor  little  thing  could  never  get  better,  but  change  of 
place  and  boyish  carelessness  made  me  forget  by  de- 
grees the  sorrows  I  had  witnessed  and  the  terrible 
scenes  I  had  been  through.  I  slept  by  myself  in  a  long 
narrow  room,  the  window  of  which  looked  out  into  the 
country.  One  evening,  when  I  had  gone  to  bed  as 
usual  at  nine  o'clock,^  I  could  not  sleep,  which  was 
something  remarkable,  for  as  soon  as  dinner  was  over 
I  could  usually  have  slept  standing.  The  moon  was 
full  and  very  bright.  It  lit  up  the  garden  and  threw  a 
strong  ray  of  light  into  my  chamber. 

"As  I  could  not  go  to  sleep  I  listened  to  the  town 
clock  striking  the  hours,  which  seemed  to  me  very 
long.  I  gazed  steadily  at  the  window,  which  was  just 
opposite  my  bed,  and  at  half-past  twelve  I  thought  I 
saw  a  ray  of  moonshine  moving  slightly,  then  a 
shadowy,  luminous  form  floated  past,  at  first  like  a 
great  white  robe,  then  it  took  a  bodily  shape,  and,  com- 
ing up  to  my  bed,  stood  there  smiling  at  me.  I  uttered 
a  cry  of  'Leontine!'  Then  the  bright  shade,  gliding 
as  before,  disappeared  from  the  foot  of  my  bed. 

'  *  Some  days  later  I  went  home,  and  before  any  one 
had  spoken  to  me  of  Leontine,  I  told  them  my  vision. 


194  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

On  the  day  and  in  the  hour  when  she  appeared  to  me 
the  poor  child  had  died. ' ' 

The  following  case  is  from  The  Unknown.  We  may 
call  it — 

Physical  Phenomena  at  Death 

' l  My  grandparents  lived  on  a  country  place  at  Saint 
Meurice,  near  Eochelle. 

1 '  My  father,  the  eldest  of  his  family,  had  been  a  sub- 
lieutenant in  Algeria,  where  he  had  passed  ten  years 
of  danger  and  fatigue  in  the  first  years  of  the  conquest. 

"Enthusiasm  for  danger,  and  the  spirit  roused  by 
the  accounts  contained  in  his  letters,  inspired  his 
brother  Camille  with  a  wish  to  join  him.  He  disem- 
barked at  Algiers,  as  a  non-commissioned  officer,  in 
April,  soon  after  joined  my  father  at  Oran,  and  took 
part  in  an  expedition  against  Abd-el-Kader  at  the  end 
of  June. 

* '  The  French  were  obliged  to  retreat  on  Arzew,  and 
lost  many  men  in  crossing  the  swamps  of  Macta.  My 
uncle  received  three  gun-shot  wounds,  though  not  se- 
vere ones.  But  in  a  bivouac,  a  French  soldier  cleaning 
his  gun  let  it  go  off,  and  his  ball  struck  my  uncle  in  the 
thigh.  He  had  to  submit  to  an  operation.  When  it  was 
over  he  died  of  a  spasmodic  seizure. 

"Communication  in  those  days  was  slow  with  Al- 
geria, and  my  grandmother  had  heard  none  of  these 
things.  According  to  a  very  common  fashion  at  this 
period,  she  had  on  the  chimney-piece  of  her  reception- 
room,  au  premier,  a  very  handsome  coffee-set  of  porce- 
lain, arranged  for  ornament. 

"Suddenly,  in  broad  daylight,  there  was  a  tremen- 
dous crash  in  the  room. 

"My  grandmother  and  her  maid  rushed  up,  and 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  195 

great  was  their  astonishment  at  the  spectacle  that 
awaited  them.  All  the  pieces  that  composed  the  coffee- 
service  lay  in  fragments  on  the  floor  in  a  heap  on  one 
side  of  the  chimney,  as  if  they  had  been  swept  up  in 
that  direction.  My  grandmother  was  terrified,  and 
felt  sure  that  some  misfortune  was  at  hand. 

1  'The  room  was  carefully  searched,  but  none  of  the 
suggestions  made  to  my  grandmother,  in  hopes  of  re- 
assuring her,  seemed  to  her  admissible — a  gust  of 
wind,  a  rush  of  rats,  or  a  cat  shut  up  in  the  room  by 
some  mischance,  etc.  .  .  .  The  apartment  had  been 
completely  closed,  so  that  there  could  have  been  no 
current  of  air.  Neither  cat  nor  rats  would  have  broken 
the  china,  and  then  gathered  into  one  heap  on  the  floor 
the  fragments  of  a  service  that  had  been  set  out  all 
along  the  chimney-piece. 

"There  was  no  one  in  the  house  but  my  grandfather, 
grandmother,  and  their  maid. 

"The  first  post  from  Africa  brought  news  to  my 
grandparents  of  the  death  of  their  son,  which  hap- 
pened on  the  very  day  the  coffee-set  was  broken." 

The  following  incident  was  widely  commented  upon, 
soon  after  its  publication.  It  appeared,  I  believe,  in 
one  form  or  another  in  several  British  papers ;  but  I 
take  the  account  from  Stuart's  Dreams  and  Visions  of 
the  War,  as  there  given : — 

An  Apparition  in  the  Trenches 

"The  Colonel  of  a  well-known  regiment  that  had 
been  in  the  thick  of  the  fighting  ever  since  the  com- 
mencement of  the  war,  was  simply  idolized  by  the  men 
who  fought  under  him,  and  there  was  great  grief 


196  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

amongst  them  when  he  was  so  badly  wounded  that  he 
had  to  give  up  his  command  in  France,  a  grenade  hav- 
ing deprived  him  of  an  arm. 

"  After  a  few  months  at  home  the  Colonel,  who  had 
meanwhile  been  fitted  with  an  artificial  arm,  thought 
he  was  well  enough  to  rejoin  his  regiment.  But  he  was 
told  that  this  was  impossible,  and  the  command  of  a 
garrison  battalion  leaving  for  the  Dardanelles  was 
offered  him  instead. 

"  Being  a  man  of  action  he  accepted  this  new  com- 
mand rather  than  remain  idle,  and  so,  though  his  heart 
was  with  his  old  regiment  in  Flanders,  he  set  out  for 
Lemnos  to  take  up  his  new  post  there. 

"But  before  very  long  he  contracted  a  severe  at- 
tack of  dysentery,  and  once  more  had  to  be  invalided 
home.  He  reached  England  all  right ;  but  in  the  hos- 
pital train  on  his  way  to  London  he  breathed  his  last. 

"And  now  comes  the  curious  part  of  the  story.  At 
the  very  moment  of  his  death  in  the  hospital  train,  the 
Colonel  appeared  to  his  old  regiment  in  the  trenches 
in  Flanders,  in  broad  daylight,  when  every  man  was 
at  his  post. 

"  'Why,  here's  Colonel !  I  didn't  know  he  was 

back,'  remarked  the  Company  Sergeant-Major  to  the 
Company  Commander,  as  he  pointed  out  the  well- 
known  figure  of  their  old  chief,  standing  there  before 
them.  The  Company  Commander  sprang  forward  to 
greet  him,  but  before  he  reached  his  side  the  appari- 
tion had  disappeared. 

"And  the  Colonel  was  not  only  seen  by  these  two, 
but  by  nearly  all  his  men,  who  speak  with  bated  breath 
of  their  experience  to  this  day. 

* '  For  at  the  time  he  appeared  to  them  in  the  trenches 
in  Flanders  they  had  thought  he  was  still  at  Lemnos; 


though  when  they  realized  the  nature  of  the  appari- 
tion they  were  filled  with  misgivings.  These  misgivings 
were  only  too  well  confirmed  a  week  later,  when  the 
mail  arrived  bringing  the  news  of  his  death. ' ' 

A  Fallen  Soldier  Returns 

The  following  case  was  published  in  the  Harbinger 
of  Light,  November,  1916 : — 

St.  Matthew's,  Albury, 

Sept.  20,  1916. 
Sir:— 

I  had  to  convey  the  news  of  the  death  of  a  soldier  in 
France  to  his  parents  here  only  last  night.  As  I  ex- 
pected, it  was  a  most  painful  duty.  The  mother  was 
half  demented,  and  one  of  the  deceased  soldier's  sis- 
ters went  into  a  succession  of  fainting  fits.  I  mention 
this,  which  is  common  enough  these  dreadful  times,  to 
emphasize  the  comparative  equanimity  of  the  father, 
which  was  obvious,  almost  at  once,  though,  we  could 
see,  he  was  greatly  moved. 

Later  on  he  said  to  me,  "I  knew  it,  Sir,  before  you 
came  in!" 

When  he  had  time  to  speak  he  told  me  he  saw  his  son 
about  a  fortnight  ago.  He  had  been  thinking  of  the 
lad,  and  could  not  sleep.  Towards  morning  he  got  up, 
and  after  putting  on  some  clothing  he  went  to  the  door 
leading  on  to  the  veranda,  and,  lifting  the  latch, 
looked  out.  The  sky  was  just  paling  before  sunrise, 
and  in  the  dim  light  he  saw  his  son  quite  plainly — he 
was  in  uniform,  was  not  facing  his  father  directly,  but 
turned  away,  and  was  looking  at  the  latter  over  his 
shoulder  and  smiling. 

"Just  like  he  always  did — he  was  always  smiling 


198  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

some  way ! "  I  quote  the  father's  words.  He  laid  stress 
on  the  smile,  which  was  evidently  a  habit  of  his  son's, 
and  marked  his  identity.  After  telling  me  this,  he 
called  another  son  who  was  looking  after  his  mother, 
and  asked  the  former  to  tell  me  the  story  in  corrobora- 
tion,  which  he  did,  stating  that  his  father  told  the  fam- 
ily the  same  day  that  he  had  seen  his  son,  and  that 
they  might  expect  a  letter  next  mail.  This  he  said, 
lest  they  should  be  anxious,  though  in  his  own  mind 
the  father  told  me  he  concluded  his  son  had  passed. 

I  only  note  that  the  family  are  ordinary  labouring 
class — very  respectable  people,  earning  good  wages 
and  comfortably  situated,  not  at  all  very  religious  or 
sentimental,  but  evidently  very  united  and  affection- 
ate. The  father  is  about  forty-five  years  of  age,  and 
there  are  several  children. 

I  had  not  much  time  to  enquire  about  details,  as  my 
mission  as  comforter  took  precedence  of  all  else;  but 
though  I  cannot,  without  their  permission,  mention  the 
name  of  the  bereaved  family,  you  are  at  perfect  lib- 
erty to  use  my  name  and  this  communication  for  any 
purpose  you  think  best. 

Faithfully  yours, 

F.  BEVAN, 
(Eector  and  Canon). 

Sympathy  Between  Twins 

There  is  a  popular  belief  that  between  twins  there 
exists  at  times  an  affinity  which  surpasses  the  normal. 
The  following  experience  of  twin  brothers,  while  both 
were  engaged  in  serving  their  country,  would  seem  to 
indicate  that  there  are  grounds  for  this  belief. 

A  certain  corporal,  who  was  with  his  regiment  at 


199 

a  home  station,  had  been  very  anxious  for  some  time 
about  his  twin  brother  who  was  fighting  in  France.  He 
had  not  heard  from  him  for  some  weeks,  and  as  he 
had  been  a  fairly  regular  correspondent,  this  worried 
him  a  great  deal. 

One  night  he  was  awakened  from  a  deep  sleep  by 
the  sound  of  his  name  being  spoken ;  he  sat  up  in  bed 
and  listened,  but  the  call  was  not  repeated. 

And  then,  as  he  looked  across  the  room,  in  the  semi- 
darkness  he  saw  quite  plainly  his  brother  sitting  on 
his  trunk,  which  was  near  the  door.  Too  surprised  to 
pause  to  reason  how  he  could  have  got  there,  the  cor- 
poral jumped  quickly  out  of  bed  to  greet  him,  but  as 
he  approached  the  spot  the  apparition  had  vanished. 
All  the  rest  of  the  night  he  tossed  and  turned  in  his 
bed,  for  he  could  not  sleep.  He  had  the  feeling  that 
his  brother  was  in  danger.  Next  morning  he  related 
his  experience  to  his  landlady,  and  also  mentioned  it 
to  his  mother  when  he  wrote  home.  As  at  the  time  he 
was  suffering  from  dyspepsia  and  overstrain  his 
friends  put  the  vision  down  to  "nerves."  They  were 
of  very  different  opinion,  however,  when  a  few  days 
later  the  corporal  received  a  field  postcard  from  his 
brother,  stating  that  he  had  been  wounded  at  the  Bat- 
tle of  Loos,  at  the  very  hour  when  he  had  seemed  to 
see  him  sitting  on  the  box  in  his  room. 

The  following  incident  was  published  in  the  January, 
1918,  number  of  the  Psychical  Research  Review,  and 
is  somewhat  different  from  the  usual  type  of  story  of 
this  character, — inasmuch  as  the  soldier  apparently 
appeared  to  a  dying  sister,  while  he  himself  was  alive 
and  well,  though  asleep,  in  France.  The  name  and 


200  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

address  of  the  communicator,  though  not  published 
here,  is  known  to  me.    I  have  called  it : 

A  Soldier  Returns 

In  her  country  home  surrounded  by  loving  ones  a 
young  woman  lay  dying  of  that  dread  disease,  con- 
sumption. Her  eldest  brother  had  enlisted  when  the 
first  call  for  soldiers  had  come  and  was  now  "Some- 
where in  France."  When  he  left  home  she  had  been 
indisposed  but  no  one  thought  that  in  a  few  short  weeks 
her  young  life  would  be  ended.  But  the  progress  of 
the  disease  was  rapid  and  she  was  soon  near  the  gates 
of  eternity. 

During  her  entire  illness  she  had  almost  daily  ex- 
pressed a  desire  that  she  might  be  able  to  see  her 
brother  once  more,  but  it  seemed  that  her  wish  was  to 
be  denied.  And  yet  on  this  beautiful  Autumn  morn- 
ing she  surprised  her  parents  by  stating  that  during 
the  night  her  brother  had  come  to  her  and  that  she  was 
now  ready  to  go. 

Those  who  were  gathered  around  her  bed  tried  to 
tell  her  she  had  evidently  dreamed  he  was  there.  But 
to  them  she  replied,  * '  No,  I  did  not  dream  it.  I  was  not 
asleep  but  as  wide  awake  as  I  am  now.  I  saw  him 
plainly,  in  his  soldier  clothes,  as  he  stood  by  my  bed. 
To  me  he  said,  'I  knew  you  wanted  me,  Sis,  so  I  have 
come.  I  cannot  stay  long.  I  must  soon  return.  Do 
not  fear,  some  day  we'll  be  together  forever.  There 
will  be  no  seas  to  separate  us  then.  Until  that  time, 
Good-bye,'  ' '  and  he  faded  away. 

A  few  hours  later  and  her  form  was  stilled  forever. 
Who  shall  say  she  did  not  see  him?  Perhaps  by  some 
means  as  yet  unknown  to  science,  she  was  enabled 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  201 

to  see  what  we  shall  call,  for  lack  of  a  better  name,  The 
Shadow  Form  of  her  brother  and  hear  his  voice,  when 
other  eyes  were  blind  to  the  vision  and  other  ears  deaf 
to  his  voice.  Who  knows? 

A  Remarkable  Apparition 

The  next  incident  is  given  by  Mr.  R.  D.  Owen;  and 
though  it  is  older  than  those  just  quoted,  is  well  worth 
publication,  because  of  the  excellence  of  the  evidence 
it  presents.  Mr.  Owen  writes : — 

"For  the  following  narrative  I  am  indebted  to  the 
kindness  of  London  friends.  Of  the  good  faith  of  the 
narrators  there  cannot  be  a  doubt. 

"In  the  month  of  September,  Captain  G.  W.,  of  the 
6th  Dragoon  Guards,  went  out  to  India  to  join  his 
regiment.  His  wife  remained  in  England,  residing  at 
Cambridge.  On  the  night  between  the  14th  and  the 
15th  of  November,  towards  morning,  she  dreamed  that 
she  saw  her  husband,  looking  anxious  and  ill,  upon 
which  she  immediately  awoke,  much  agitated.  It  was 
bright  moonlight;  and  looking  up,  she  perceived  the 
same  figure  standing  by  her  bedside.  He  appeared  in 
his  uniform,  the  hands  pressed  across  the  breast,  the 
hair  dishevelled,  the  face  very  pale.  His  large  dark 
eyes  were  fixed  full  upon  her;  their  expression  was 
that  of  great  excitement,  and  there  was  a  peculiar  con- 
traction of  the  mouth,  habitual  to  him  when  he  was 
agitated.  She  saw  him,  even  to  each  minute  particular 
of  his  dress,  as  distinctly  as  she  had  ever  done  in  her 
life;  and  she  remembers  to  have  noticed  between  his 
hands  the  white  of  the  shirt-bosom,  unstained,  how- 
ever, with  blood.  The  figure  seemed  to  bend  forward, 
as  if  in  pain,  and  to  make  an  effort  to  speak ;  but  there 


202  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

was  no  sound.  It  remained  visible,  the  wife  thinks, 
as  long  as  a  minute,  and  then  disappeared. 

"Her  first  idea  was  to  ascertain  if  she  was  actually 
awake.  She  rubbed  her  eyes  with  the  sheet,  and  felt 
that  the  touch  was  real.  Her  little  nephew  was  in  bed 
with  her :  she  bent  over  the  sleeping  child,  and  listened 
to  its  breathing;  the  sound  was  distinct;  and  she  be- 
came convinced  that  what  she  had  seen  was  no  dream. 
It  need  hardly  be  added  that  she  did  not  go  to  sleep 
again  that  night. 

"Next  morning  she  related  all  this  to  her  mother, 
expressing  her  conviction,  though  she  had  noticed  no 
marks  of  blood  on  his  dress,  that  Captain  W.  was 
either  killed  or  grievously  wounded.  So  fully  im- 
pressed was  she  with  the  reality  of  the  apparition  that 
she  thenceforth  refused  all  invitations.  A  young  friend 
urged  her,  soon  afterwards,  to  go  to  a  fashionable  con- 
cert, reminding  her  that  she  had  received  from  Malta, 
sent  by  her  husband,  a  handsome  dress  cloak,  which 
she  had  never  yet  worn.  But  she  positively  declined, 
declaring  that,  uncertain  that  she  was  not  already  a 
widow,  she  would  never  enter  a  place  of  amusement 
until  she  had  letters  from  her  husband  (if,  indeed  he 
still  lived)  of  later  date  than  the  14th  of  November. 

"It  was  on  a  Tuesday,  in  the  month  of  December, 
that  the  telegram  regarding  the  actual  fate  of  Captain 
W.  was  published  in  London.  It  was  to  the  effect  that 
he  was  killed  ...  on  the  fifteenth  of  November. 

"This  news,  given  in  the  morning  paper,  attracted 
the  attention  of  Mr.  Wilkinson,  a  London  solicitor, 
who  had  in  charge  Captain  W.'s  affairs.  When,  at  a 
later  period,  this  gentleman  met  the  widow,  she  in- 
formed him  that  she  had  been  quite  prepared  for  the 
melancholy  news,  but  that  she  felt  sure  that  her  hus- 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  203 

band  could  not  have  been  killed  on  the  15th  of  Novem- 
ber, inasmuch  as  it  was  during  the  night  between  the 
14th  and  15th  that  he  appeared  to  her.* 

"The  certificate  from  the  War  Office,  however, 
which  it  became  Mr.  Wilkinson's  duty  to  obtain,  con- 
firmed the  date  given  in  the  telegram,  its  tenor  being 
as  follows:-^ 

"  *WAB  OFFICE. 
January  30th. 

"  l  These  are  to  certify  that  it  appears,  by  the  rec- 
ords in  this  office,  that  Captain  G.  W.,  of  the  6th  Dra- 
goon Guards  (a  mistake,  as  Mr.  Dale  Owen  points  out, 
for  6th  Inniskilling  Dragoons),  was  killed  in  action  No- 
vember 15th. 

(Signed)  "'B.  HAWES.' 

"While  Mr.  Wilkinson's  mind  remained  in  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  exact*  date,  a  remarkable  incident  oc- 
curred, which  seemed  to  cast  further  suspicion  on  the 
accuracy  of  the  telegram  and  of  the  certificate.  That 
gentleman  was  visiting  a  friend,  whose  lady  had  all 
her  life  had  perception  of  apparitions,  while  her  hus- 
band is  what  is  usually  called  an  impressible  medium ; 
facts  which  are  known,  however,  only  to  their  intimate 
friends.  Though  personally  acquainted  with  them, 
I  am  not  at  liberty  to  give  their  names.  Let  us  call 
them  Mr.  and  Mrs.  N. 

*  The  difference  of  longitude  between  London  and  Lucknow  being 
about  five  hours,  3  or  4  o'clock  a,m.  in  London  would  be  8  or  9 
o'clock  a.m.  at  Lucknow.  But  it  was  in  the  afternoon,  not  in  the 
morning,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  sequel,  that  Captain  W.  was  killed. 
Had  he  fallen  on  the  15th,  therefore,  the  apparition  to  his  wife 
would  have  appeared  several  hours  before  the  engagement  in  which 
he  fell,  and  while  he  was  yet  alive  and  well. 


204  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

"Mr.  Wilkinson  related  to  them,  as  a  wonderful  cir- 
cumstance, the  vision  of  the  Captain's  widow  in  con- 
nection with  his  death,  and  described  the  figure  as  it 
had  appeared  to  her.  Mrs.  N.  turning  to  her  husband 
instantly  said: — 

'  *  '  That  must  be  the  very  person  I  saw  the  evening  we 
were  talking  of  India,  and  you  drew  an  elephant  with 
a  howdah  on  his  back.  Mr.  Wilkinson  has  described 
his  exact  position  and  appearance;  the  uniform  of  a 
British  officer,  his  hands  pressed  across  his  breast,  his 
form  bent  forward  as  if  in  pain.  'The  figure,'  she 
added  to  Mr.  W.,  'appeared  just  behind  my  husband, 
and  seemed  looking  over  his  left  shoulder.'  " 

(Mr.  and  Mrs.  N.,  who  were  Spiritualists,  then  ob- 
tained what  purported  to  be  a  message,  from  their 
strange  visitant,  saying  that  he  had  been  killed  that 
afternoon  by  a  wound  in  the  breast;  but  the  message 
may  perfectly  well  have  been  the  automatic  result  of. 
their  own  ideas ;  as  it  contained  nothing  beyond  what 
they  might  have  guessed  from  the  nature  of  the  ap- 
parition. This  occurred  at  9  in  the  evening;  and  the 
date  was  fixed  as  the  fourteenth  of  November,  by  the 
date  on  a  bill  which  was  receipted,  as  it  was  remem- 
bered, on  the  same  evening.) 

"This  confirmation  of  the  widow's  conviction  as  to 
the  day  of  her  husband's  death  produced  so  much  im- 
pression on  Mr.  Wilkinson  that  he  called  at  the  office 
of  Messrs.  Cox  and  Greenwood,  the  army  agents,  to 
ascertain  if  there  was  no  mistake  in  the  certificate. 
But  nothing  there  appeared  to  confirm  any  surmise  of 
inaccuracy.  Captain  W.'s  death  was  mentioned  in 
two  separate  despatches  .  .  .  and  in  both  the  date  cor- 
responded with  that  given  in  the  telegram. 

"So  matters  rested,  until,  in  the  month  of  March, 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  205 

the  family  of  Captain  W.  received  from  Captain  G.  C., 
then  of  the  Military  Train,  a  letter  dated  near  Luck- 
now,  on  the  19th  of  December.  This  letter  informed 
them  that  Captain  W.  had  been  killed  before  Luck- 
now,  while  gallantly  leading  on  a  squadron,  not  on 
the  15th  of  November,  as  reported  in  the  official  des- 
patches, but  on  the  fourteenth  in  the  afternoon.  Cap- 
tain C.  was  riding  close  by  his  side  at  the  time  he  saw 
him  fall.  He  was  struck  by  a  fragment  of  shell  in  the 
breast,  and  never  spoke  after  he  was  hit.  He  was 
buried  at  the  Dilkoosha ;  and  on  a  wooden  cross  erected 
by  his  friend,  Lieutenant  R.,  of  the  9th  Lancers,  at  the 
head  of  his  grave,  are  cut  the  initials  G.  W.,  and  the 
date  of  his  death,  the  14th  of  November.* 

"The  War  Office  finally  made  the  correction  as  to 
the  date  of  death,  but  not  until  more  than  a  year  after 
the  event  occurred.  Mr.  Wilkinson,  having  occasion 
to  apply  for  an  additional  copy  of  the  certificate  in 
April,  found  on  it  exactly  the  same  words  as  those 
I  have  given,  only  that  the  14th  of  November  had  been 
substituted  for  the  15th.f 

"This  extraordinary  narrative  was  obtained  by  me 
directly  from  the  parties  themselves.  The  widow  of 
Captain  W.  kindly  consented  to  examine  and  correct 
the  manuscript,  and  allowed  me  to  inspect  a  copy  of 

*  It  was  not  in  his  owji  regiment,  which  was  then  at  Meerut,  that 
Captain  W.  was  serving  at  the  time  of  his  death.  Immediately 
on  arriving  from  England  at  Cawnpore,  he  had  offered  his  services 
to  Colonel  Wilson,  of  the  64th.  They  were  at  first  declined,  but 
finally  accepted,  and  he  joined  the  Military  Train,  then  starting  for 
Lucknow.  It  was  in  their  ranks  that  he  fell. 

f  The  originals  of  both  these  certificates  are  in  my  possession ; 
the  first  bearing  the  date  30th  January,  and  certifying,  as  already 
shown,  to  the  15th;  the  second  dated  5th  April,  and  testifying  to 
the  14th.  (R.  D.  0.) 


206  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

Captain  C.'s  letter,  giving  the  particulars  of  her  hus- 
band's death.  To  Mr.  Wilkinson  also  the  manuscript 
was  submitted,  and  he  assented  to  its  accuracy  so  far 
as  he  is  concerned.  That  portion  which  relates  to  Mrs. 
N.  I  had  from  that  lady  herself.  I  have  neglected 
no  precaution,  therefore,  to  obtain  for  it  the  warrant  of 
authenticity. 

"It  is  especially  valuable,  as  furnishing  an  example 
of  a  double  apparition.  Nor  can  it  be  alleged  (even  if 
the  allegation  had  weight)  that  the  recital  of  one  lady 
caused  the  apparition  of  the  same  figure  to  the  other. 
Mrs.  W.  was  at  the  time  in  Cambridge,  and  Mrs.  N. 
in  London;  and  it  was  not  till  weeks  after  the  occur- 
rence that  either  knew  what  the  other  had  seen. 

"  Those  who  would  explain  the  whole  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  chance  coincidence  have  a  treble  event  to  take 
into  account;  the  apparition  to  Mrs.  N.,  that  to  Mrs. 
W.,  and  the  actual  time  of  Captain  W.'s  death,  each 
tallying  exactly  with  the  other. ' ' 

Mr.  Wilkinson,  of  Winton  House,  Baling,  W.,  writes 
to  us : — 

November  5th. 

"Mr.  Robert  Dale  Owen  personally  investigated  the 
case,  and  submitted  the  message  to  Captain  Wheat- 
croft's  widow.  I  revised  the  part  belonging  to  me,  and 
that  part  which  referred  to  the  appearance  of  Mrs. 
Nenner  was  revised  by  her  and  her  husband,  Profes- 
sor Nenner.  I  gave  the  original  certificates  of  death 
by  the  War  Office  to  Mr.  Owen. 

"W.  M.  WILKINSON. " 

(The  Mr.  N.  mentioned  was  the  Rev.  Maurice  Nen- 
ner, Professor  of  Hebrew  at  the  Nonconformist  Col- 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  207 

lege,  St.  John's  Wood.  Both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nenner  are 
dead.) 

It  should  be  observed  that  there  was  no  probable 
recognition  of  Captain  Wheatcroft  by  Mrs.  Nenner. 
We  only  know  of  the  following  points  to  connect  her 
vision  with  Captain  Wheatcroft 's  death: — Similarity 
of  attitude ;  uniform  of  a  British  officer ;  wound  in  the 
breast;  date;  and,  apart  from  Mrs.  Wheatcroft 's  vis- 
ion, there  is  nothing  remarkable  in  this  combination. 
But  it  is  certainly  curious  that  on  that  day  she  should 
have  had  a  vision  which  corresponded,  at  least  up  to  a 
certain  point,  with  what  Mrs.  Wheatcroft  saw.* 

We  do  not  know  the  hour  of  Captain  Wheatcroft 's 
death,  as  he  may  not  have  died  the  moment  he  was 
struck.  If  the  death  was  immediate,  it  must  have  pre- 
ceded Mrs.  Wheatcroft 's  vision  by  at  least  12  hours. 

The  following  remarkably  interesting  series  of  Vis- 
ions and  Dreams  appeared  in  the  Occult  Review, 
March,  1917,  and  is  reprinted  here  by  kind  permission 
of  the  Editor,  Mr.  Ralph  Shirley.  The  article  is  by 
"F.  G  "  and  Mr  J.  Art-hur  Hill,  the  well-known  psy- 
chical researcher,  and  author  of  New  Evidences  in 
Psychical  Research,  Psychical  Investigations,  Spirit- 
ualism, etc.  Here  is  the  account : — 

*  There  is  another  curious  incident  connected  with  this  case.  In 
a  letter  written  on  July  28th,  to  the  Rev.  Wrey  Savile,  and  kindly 
sent  by  him  to  me,  a  clergyman  of  the  Midland  counties  gives  per- 
mission to  use  his  wife's  testimony  to  the  fact  that  Captain  Wheat- 
croft "appeared,  on  the  date  named,  to  an  old  playfellow  and  an 
old  friend  of  hio" — herself.  I  have  corresponded  with  the  clergy- 
man in  question,  but  further  details  cannot  now  be  procured. 


208  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

Mrs.  Guihrie's  Narrative 

In  February,  1914, 1  became  acquainted  with  a  Capt. 
Stuart,  an  army  man  who  had  been  through  the  Boer 
War.  We  saw  little  of  each  other,  but  each  felt  almost 
at  once  a  strong  sense  of  kinship  and  friendliness.  As 
a  matter  of  fact — though  this  may  not  be  the  cause- 
there  is  very  slight  relationship,  through  a  common 
ancestor  several  generations  back.  In  July,  1914,  be- 
fore I  had  any  idea  of  the  European  war-cloud,  which 
was  soon  to  burst,  I  was  presiding  at  a  tea  in  camp, 
not  far  from  my  home :  it  was  a  bright  sunny  day,  and 
everybody  was  in  high  spirits  except  myself.  I  found 
myself  inexplicably  depressed:  the  thought  "Oh,  the 
pity  of  it,  the  pity  of  it ! "  filled  my  mind,  without  any 
reason.  Capt.  Stuart  was  there,  but  I  did  not  special- 
ly associate  my  feelings  with  him  or  any  one  else.  I 
went  home  to  bed,  and  wept  miserably  without  know- 
ing why. 

In  July,  1915,  Capt.  Stuart's  battalion  sailed  for 
Gallipoli.  We  corresponded  regularly,  and  I  sent  him 
parcels.  I  felt  no  special  apprehension.  On  the  night 
of  December  9,  1915,  I  went  to  bed  at  10  p.  m.  but 
could  not  sleep  for  some  time.  When  I  did,  I  had  a 
horrid  dream  of  muddy  water,  and  awoke  in  great 
discomfort  and  uneasiness.  The  room  was  in  absolute 
darkness,  the  blind  down,  and  heavy  curtains  across 
the  window ;  but  presently  I  was  surprised  to  see  a  big 
bright  light  on  the  wall  opposite  my  bed  and  moving 
very  rapidly.  It  then  disappeared,  reappearing  on 
the  next  wall,  then  on  the  wardrobe  by  my  bed.  I  was 
frightened  and  screamed  for  my  friend  next  door;  she 
was  in  almost  instantly,  white  and  shaking  and  saying, 
"The  Light!  the  Light!  What  is  it?"  For  she  had 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  209 

seen  the  same  light  in  her  room,  on  the  door  of  com- 
munication between  the  two  rooms.  The  blinds  were 
down,  the  heavy  curtains  drawn,  in  her  room  also: 
moreover  we  were  on  the  third  floor,  and  no  explana- 
tion by  a  light  outside  was  possible.  We  spent  the 
remainder  of  the  night  together. 

Four  days  later,  on  December  13,  came  the  news  that 
Capt.  Stuart  was  wounded,  but  no  details.  And,  since 
he  was  on  the  Staff,  we  hoped  it  was  nothing  serious. 
The  absence  of  " dangerously"  or  " seriously"  was  re- 
assuring. 

That  right,  Monday,  December  13,  1915,  I  dreamt 
that  Capt.  Stuart  was  standing  by  my  bedside.  I  saw 
him  as  plainly  as  I  see  the  writing  I  am  doing  at  this 
moment.  His  uniform  looked  very  worn,  and  he  had 
grey  hairs  in  the  black.  His  face  looked  wan,  worried, 
harassed,  troubled,  lined,  and  he  was  very  thin  in  the 
body,  and  his  uniform  was  splashed.  One  hand  was 
on  my  counterpane,  the  other  was  pointing  to  heaven 
and  he  was  singing,  "  Jesu,  Lover  of  My  Soul."  Then 
I  awoke.  When  my  maid  came  in,  the  first  thing  in 
the  morning,  I  said  I  felt  sure  that  Capt.  Stuart  had 
"gone  west,"  and  told  her  my  dream.  The  letters 
came  in,  and  there  was  one  from  a  relative  of  his,  say- 
ing that  a  wire  had  been  received  from  the  War  Office 
announcing  his  death.  He  had  been  wounded  on  De- 
cember 6,  and  died  on  December  9.  I  went  over  to  see 
the  relative,  and  mentioned  my  dream  and  the  hymn, 
asking  if  it  was  a  favourite  of  his.  She  said  she  had 
never  heard  so. 

About  a  month  after — during  which  time  I  constant- 
ly saw  the  Light,  only  now  always  there  was  a  second 
light  close  behind  it — this  relative  wired  for  me  to  come 
over,  and  I  went.  On  going  into  the  room  she  greeted 


210  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

me  with  unusual  gravity,  saying  immediately  after- 
wards: "What  was  the  hymn  you  say  Colin  sang  that 
night  you  saw  him?"  "Jesu,  Lover  of  my  Soul,"  I 
replied.  She  then  gave  me  a  letter  which  had  arrived 
that  morning  from  one  of  the  senior  Staff  officers,  giv- 
ing the  details.  Capt.  Stuart  was  rendered  uncon- 
scious by  a  shell-wound  on  December  6,  and  died  at 
2  a.  m.  December  9,  without  recovering  consciousness. 
He  was  buried,  wrapped  in  the  Union  Jack,  at  4.45 
a,  m.  with  full  military  honours;  and  the  hymn  sung 
was  "  Jesu,  Lover  of  my  Soul." 

I  had  never  discussed  religion  or  hymns  with  him. 
And  I  had  never  dreamt  of  him  before. 

Some  time  afterwards  I  either  had  a  dream  or  a 
vision — I  don 't  know  which — of  my  friend  standing  by 
my  bedside,  looking  awfully  determined  and  not  too 
pleased.  One  hand  had  hold  of  one  of  my  wrists  very 
tightly,  and  he  was  urging  me  to  go  with  him.  I  want- 
ed to  go,  very  much,  but  something  (I  felt  it  was  a 
material  and  earthy  claim)  held  me  back.  He  was  in 
khaki,  but  it  looked  brighter  and  more  cared  for.  He 
seemed  very  determined,  and  was  angry  because  he 
could  not  drag  me  out  of  bed.  I  gave  a  cry,  and  woke 
or  came  to,  to  hear  some  one  moving  round  the  room 
to  the  door,  which  I  distinctly  heard  open;  footsteps 
(a  man's  with  jack  boots  and  spurs  clanking)  going 
downstairs:  the  front  door  opened  and  shut,  and  the 
clock  struck  five. 

Very  early  the  next  morning  my  friend  came  into 
my  room  much  upset,  and  asked  me  if  I  had  seen  the 
Light.  I  said  No:  and  she  said  that  something  had 
awakened  her  and  she  had  seen  a  large  Light  on  the 
communication  door  between  our  rooms,  though  the 
room  was  in  pitch  darkness :  then  it  moved  along  the 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  21i 

wall  towards  the  door,  as  it  did  so  she  heard  something 
moving  in  my  room,  then  heard  my  door  open,  foot- 
steps as  of  a  man  in  jack  boots  with  spurs  clanking 
down  stairs,  the  front  door  open  and  shut,  and  the  clock 
struck  five. 

A  few  weeks  later  I  was  at  my  mother's,  where 
Capt.  Stuart  had  never  been.  My  maid  slept  with  me. 
She  had  never  seen  Capt.  Stuart.  On  the  third  night, 
January  7,  1916,  I  dreamt  that  he  had  come  into  my 
room  and  was  bending  over  me  with  a  beautiful  smile 
on  his  face.  He  took  my  hand  gently  but  firmly  (he 
was  looking  awfully  well  and  very  determined,  but  at 
the  same  time  kindly  so),  and  I  was  quite  willing  to  go, 
and  extraordinarily  happy.  Then  a  great  shriek  woke 
me  or  brought  me  to,  and  I  heard  my  maid  crying, 
1  'The  man,  the  man!  No,  no,  you  must  not  go  with 
him!"  It  took  me  a  long  time  to  pacify  her.  She 
then  told  me  that  she  "had  been  awakened  by  hearing 
the  door  open,  and  to  her  astonishment  in  came  a  man 
in  khaki.  The  extraordinary  thing  is  that  though  the 
room  was  in  absolute  darkness,  she  saw  everything 
quite  as  plainly  as  if  it  had  been  broad  daylight.  The 
man,  who,  she  saw,  was  an  officer,  came  to  her  side  of 
the  bed  and  looked  down  at  her.  She  stared  up  at  him, 
too  astonished  to  be  frightened  just  then.  When  he 
saw  her,  he  looked  angry  and  turned  on  his  heel  to  go 
round  to  my  side  of  the  bed,  and  she  saw  that  when 
he  leant  over  me  a  wonderful  change  came  over  his 
face,  the  angry  look  giving  place  to  a  beautiful  smile. 
She  saw  him  take  hold  of  my  hand,  and  she  thinks  I 
said  "Coming!"  Then  she  suddenly  realized  that 
there  was  something  strange,  and  when  I  was  half  out 
of  bed  she  screamed  (and  she  did  scream),  then  I  woke 
or  came  to.  Some  days  afterwards  I  showed  her  a 


212  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

photograph  of  Capt.  Stuart.  She  recognized  it  with- 
out hesitation  as  being  the  man  she  had  seen  that  night. 

I  never  saw  the  light  or  lights  again,  but  in  July 
(1916)  I  had  a  queer  dream  which  I  call  my  "Mrs. 
Caird  of  Arran"  dream.  This  I  will  now  describe. 

I  dreamt  it  was  very  early  in  the  morning;  where 
I  was  I  do  not  know — and  some  one  came  and  said,  "  A 
Mrs.  Caird  of  Arran  is  here  and  specially  wishes  to 
see  you."  "Never  heard  of  her/'  I  answered.  "Oh, 
she  knows  all  about  you,  and  she  says  she  must  see 
you.'7  I  said  I  was  busy  and  couldn't  see  her  then; 
she  must  wait. 

The  day  passed,  and  so  did  all  recollection  of  Mrs. 
Caird  of  Arran  from  my  mind,  and  it  was  not  till  late 
in  the  evening  (all  this  in  my  dream)  that  I  was  re- 
minded that  Mrs.  Caird  of  Arran  was  still  waiting.  I 
was  horrified  at  having  kept  any  one  waiting  all  those 
hours,  and  thought  how  annoyed  she  would  be  with 
me.  But  I  found  her  quite  good-tempered.  She  was 
quite  unknown  to  me.  A  tall  woman,  elderly,  a  jolly, 
buxom-looking  party,  but  not  at  all  vulgar  or  common. 
She  was  dressed  in  black  satin ;  from  neck  to  waist  was 
what  used  to  be  called  a  "waterfall"  of  black  lace,  and 
from  mid-bosom  to  waist  hung  a  huge  gold  chain  fash- 
ioned like  a  cable,  with  huge  links;  she  wore  a  bonnet 
tied  under  her  chin  with  strings — old-fashioned,  with 
bugles;  her  hair,  which  must  have  been  yellow,  was 
now  grey,  parted  in  the  middle.  Eyes  a  pretty  grey, 
complexion  rosy,  expression  very  kind.  And  she 
seemed  to  know  all  about  me.  I  wondered  where  ever 
I  could  have  met  her.  So  I  said,  "As  you  come  from 
Arran,  perhaps  you  know  the  Stuarts — Capt.  Stuart 
passed  over  at  Gallipoli  last  December."  "Oh,  very 
well,  indeed,"  she  replied;  "and  Colin  has  just  sent 


APPAKITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  213 

a  message  to  his  mother  by  a  bat  (an  officer's  servant) 
to  say  he  will  never  come  back  now." 

Then  the  scene  changed  and  I  was  in  a  bare,  rocky 
place  with  brown  soil;  blue  sea  very  near,  peacefully 
lapping  against  the  shore;  overhead  a  very  blue  sky, 
and  hovering  in  mid-air  huge  ferocious  birds.  I  my- 
self was  seated  by  a  great  heap  of  disturbed  earth 
that  had  evidently  been  a  grave,  and  close  to  me  was  a 
great  white  bone.  And  there  was  a  bad  smell.  I  threw 
myself  on  the  ground  weeping  bitterly  and  crying, 
" Colin,  Colin,  if  only  I  could  have  saved  you  this!" 
(For  I  knew  how  he  would  loathe  it.)  Then  I  felt  my- 
self touched,  and  found  Mrs.  Caird  of  Arran  beside  me, 
pointing  to  the  grave  and  the  bone.  She  said,  '  *  Never 
mind  these;  Colin  says  he  is  quite  all  right  and  that 
he  had  a  splendid  woman  friend  at  home  when  he  was 
out  at  the  Dardanelles  and  he  will  never  forget  her." 
4 'Did  he  say  who  she  was?"  I  asked.  "Yes,  her  name 
was  Flora. ' '  I  looked  at  Mrs.  Caird  to  see  if  she  was 
"drawing"  me,  but  she  seemed  quite  unconscious. 
Just  to  make  sure,  I  said,  "My  name  is  Flora,"  but 
she  only  replied,  "Is  it?  Well,  he  says  he  can  never 
forget  how  this  woman  friend  helped  him  during  all 
these  weary  months.  Her  parcels  and  long  cheery  let- 
ters did  so  much  to  buck  him  up,  and  he  knows  the 
time  and  thought  she  must  have  spent  for  him.  She 
will  always  live  in  his  heart  and  thoughts  like  this" — 
and  she  produced  a  piece  of  white  paper  on  which,  in 
enormous  letters,  was  the  word  Flora.  Then  I  woke. 

My  next  and  (up  to  now)  last  experience  was  on  the 
night  of  September  14,  1916.  Before  going  to  sleep 
I  had  been  thinking  of  Colin  and  wondering  if  it  were 
possible  to  see  him.  The  next  thing  I  found  myself 
in  a  narrow,  lofty,  whitewashed  walled  passage,  with 


214  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

slate  tiles,  all  beautifully  clean  as  if  just  washed.  At 
one  end  was  a  door,  slightly  ajar,  evidently  of  some 
occupied  room,  for  I  could  hear  movement,  voices,  and 
laughter  occasionally. 

Suddenly,  in  front  of  me,  just  across  the  passage, 
appeared  an  elderly  woman  whom  I  had  never  seen  be- 
fore ;  short,  full-figure,  dress  as  of  very  bygone  times 
such  as  I  had  never  seen  but  had  heard  of :  the  real  old 
Garibaldi  blouse  and  waist  with  a  patent  leather  belt, 
and  the  Garibaldi  blouse  and  skirt  were  in  pepper-and- 
salt  colour.  She  had  a  white  turned-down  collar  on, 
black  hair  parted  down  the  middle,  and  done  up  in  an 
old-fashioned  chignon,  complexion  pasty  to  yellowish, 
good  shaped  nose,  bright  black  eyes.  She  spoke. 
"Capt.  Colin  Stuart  is  passing  by  and  wishes  to  see 
you,"  she  said,  and  immediately  a  thousand  voices 
seemed  to  echo  her.  I  was  frightened  and  did  not 
speak.  "Are  you  ready  to  see  Capt.  Colin  Stuart  when 
he  passes  by?"  she  asked,  and  a  thousand  voices  echoed 
again.  I  could  not  speak,  and  she  gave  me  a  very  seri- 
ous look,  saying,  "You  must  not  keep  him  waiting  when 
he  passes,"  and  the  thousand  voices  echoed  this  too. 
Then  she  vanished,  and  there  was  silence,  and  I  waited 
in  fright  as  to  whether  I  should  see  Colin  as  an  awful 
apparition.  I  had  not  much  time  for  fear,  for  from 
the  room  where  I  had  heard  voices  and  laughter,  there 
appeared  Colin;  I  heard  his  footsteps,  and  in  a  moment 
he  was  beside  me,  and  he  gave  a  jolly  laugh.  Sacred 
and  serious  as  this  subject  is  to  me  I  cannot  describe 
that  laugh  as  anything  but  jolly:  and,  taking  hold  of 
my  hand  in  one  of  his — I  saw  the  other  was  occupied- 
he  led  me  down  the  passage  and  into  a  small,  beauti- 
fully clean  three-cornered  room  with  white  walls,  slate- 
tiled  floor,  huge  old-fashioned  fireplace,  but  no  fire  or 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  215 

lurniture.  It  was  cool,  but  not  unpleasantly  so.  It 
was  the  room  next  to  the  one  he  had  come  out  of.  We 
only  went  just  inside  the  door.  Colin  twisted  me  round 
in  front  of  him  so  that  I  could  see  him  well,  and  let  go 
of  my  hand.  It  was  then  that  I  saw  that  he  carried 
a  suit  case  and  travelling  rug  in  his  occupied  hand, 
which  he  never  let  go  of  once.  He  was  in  what  I  should 
call  a  lounge  or  smoking  suit,  beautifully  cut  and 
tailored;  of  Copenhagen  blue;  shirt  cuffs  and  collar 
beautifully  white;  and  as  for  Colin  himself  he  looked 
just  splendid.  He  carried  his  head  up,  proudly  and 
grandly,  his  hair  was  beautifully  cut  and  trimmed,  also 
his  moustache ;  and  his  face !  he  had  no  lines,  and  there 
was  no  sign  on  that  face  of  either  care,  or  fatigue,  or 
worry,  or  pain,  or  as  if  he  had  ever  known  anything  of 
evil  or  trouble  of  any  kind.  He  looked  as  if  he  had  had 
the  most  perfect  long  rest  possible,  and  had  had  a 
splendid  bathe.  I  was.  so  delighted  (no  words  had  thus 
far  been  spoken  between  us)  that  I  clapped  my  hands 
and  cried,  " Colin,  Colin!"  I  suppose  he  understood, 
for,  looking  at  me  gravely,  he  said,  ''They  gave  me 
cruel  pain."  (I  don't  know  what  he  meant,  unless  he 
was  explaining  his  first  mud-splashed  and  alarming 
appearance,  with  the  lights  and  the  noises :  for  I  know 
he  would  not  want  to  frighten  me,  but  perhaps  he 
couldn't  help  coming  that  way  at  first.)  Then  I  sud- 
denly felt  awfully  old  and  tired  and  worn  out,  and  I 
said  beseechingly:  "When  can  I  come?"  And  he  re- 
plied very  softly,  "Not  just  yet  awhile;  you  are  doing 
a  splendid  work,  but  it  will  not  be  for  long  now, ' '  and 
as  he  finished  speaking,  he  gave  such  a  happy  laugh. 
And  I  oame  to  with  the  sound  of  that  happy  laugh  in 
my  ears. 
I  have  given  you  my  experiences,  which  have  all 


216  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

come  quite  spontaneously.  I  have  been  to  no  seances 
or  mediums.  They  may  or  may  not  be  of  interest  to 
you,  but  to  me  they  have  been  a  great  comfort.  I  am 
firmly  of  opinion  that  my  friend  is  doing  useful  work 
on  the  other  side  and  is  waiting  for  me.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve in  death,  and  have  a  great  horror  of  the  word  for 
what  it  has  been  made  to  imply.  I  pray  for  my  friend 
in  the  present  tense  along  with  myself,  and  my  thoughts 
are  constantly  with  him  and  of  him. 

On  each  occasion  when  I  have  come  to,  there  has 
been  a  feeling  of  intense  fatigue,  which  was  unaccount- 
able on  any  physical  grounds,  for  I  lead  a  placid  and 
restful  life,  and  besides,  it  is  not  like  fatigue  after  walk- 
ing or  dancing.  It  is  not  bodily  fatigue,  but  the  nerves 
feel  done,  absolutely  tired  and  worn  out ;  I  had  the  same 
feeling  when  my  father  and  brother  died. 

Comment  by  J.  Arthur  Hill 

Some  of  the  foregoing,  admittedly,  is  not  "  eviden- 
tial" in  the  strictest  sense.  There  is  nothing  surpris- 
ing in  any  one  dreaming  that  a  friend  is  dead,  when 
he  is  known  to  be  wounded ;  or  in  dreaming  that  he  is 
going  away,  or  that  we  are  by  a  disturbed  grave- 
though  this  latter  coincides  with  what  was  reported 
after  the  dream  about  graves  on  the  Gallipoli  penin- 
sula. But  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  points  which 
are  strongly  evidential;  i.e.,  which  suggest  the  co- 
operation of  some  mind  external  to  that  of  the  dreamer. 
The  Light,  seen  by  both  Mrs.  Guthrie  and  her  friend, 
appeared  for  the  first  time  on  the  night  of  December  9, 
apparently  after  midnight.  And  it  was  on  that  night, 
at  2  a.  m.  on  the  10th — which,  if  local  time,  would  be 
midnight  where  Mrs.  Guthrie  was — that  Capt.  Stuart 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  217 

died;  though  Mrs.  Guthrie  did  not  then  know  that  he 
was  even  wounded. 

And,  as  to  the  next  incident,  Mrs.  Guthrie  had  no 
normal  knowledge  of  the  hymn  sung  at  Capt.  Stuart's 
funeral,  and  no  knowledge  on  which  inferences  could 
be  based;  for  she  had  never  talked  with  him  about 
hymns.  The  almost  inevitable  explanation  is  either 
telepathy  from  some  soldier  present  at  the  funeral  or 
the  actual  operation  of  the  mind  of  Capt.  Stuart  him- 
self.* On  this  latter  hypothesis  he  must  have  been  con- 
sciously present  at  his  own  funeral,  listening  to  the 
hymn  sung.  And  there  is  nothing  incredible  about 
that.  I  know  of  various  incidents  which  suggest  that 
this  often  happens ;  and  the  Japanese  seem  to  believe 
something  of  the  sort.  Apparently  Capt.  Stuart  came 
and  sang  it  before  the  news  could  arrive  normally,  as 
a  test  message  proving  his  real  presence. 

Then  there  is  the  queer  fact  of  the  maid  having  a 
waking  vision  which  corroborated  Mrs.  Guthrie 's  con- 
temporaneous dream — if  it  was  a  dream,  for  her  state 
on  these  occasions  does  not  seem  to  have  been  quite 
like  ordinary  sleep.  There  was  no  "suggestion"  from 
one  to  the  other ;  each  perceived  the  same  thing  at  the 
same  time,  and  the  evidence  for  its  objectivity  was  ex- 
actly of  the  same  kind  as  the  evidence  on  which  we 
base  our  belief  in  the  external  world  in  general.  More 
fleeting  and  less  repeatable,  but  of  the  same  kind.j 

Then  there  is  the  continuity  and  the  steady  improve- 
ment in  the  spirit's  condition.  This  to  me  is  signifi- 

*  And  the  telepathy  theory  is  rendered  unlikely  by  the  fact  that 
there  is  little  or  no  good  evidence  for  the  "telepathing"  of  some 
one  else's  apparition. 

1 1  have  obtained  Mrs.  Guthrie's  maid's  signed  statement  corrob- 
orating her  part  of  the  experience. 


218  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

cant:  Mrs.  Guthrie  has  no  knowledge  of  spiritualism 
or  mediums,  but  her  experience  is  in  line  with  what  I 
have  learned  in  my  own  investigations.  After  passing 
over,  there  is  usually  no  sudden  transition  to  supernal 
realms  of  glory ;  no  transmutation  of  man  into  seraph 
or  even  ordinary  angel.  No,  he  remains  himself,  and 
for  some  little  time  he  remains  very  much  in  the  state 
of  mind  last  experienced;  exemplified  by  Capt.  Stuart's 
splashed  and  worn  khaki  and  wan  and  troubled  look 
when  first  seen,  four  days  after  his  death.  Soon,  with 
rest  and  attention  and  care,  the  spirit  gets  over  the 
shock  and  pain  incidental  to  its  last  hours  in  the  body, 
attaining  gradually  a  state  of  fine  and  perfect  health. 
It  will  be  noted  how  Capt.  Stuart,  in  his  appearances, 
looked  first  "brighter  and  more  cared  for,"  and  finally 
on  September  14,  was  evidently  in  the  most  splendid 
form  and  ready  for  work  and  progress, — as  symbol- 
ized by  suit-case  and  travelling  rug,  and  by  his  jolly 
laugh.  It  is  all  in  line  with  knowledge  gleaned  through 
other  sources — also  the  meeting  which  he  foreshadowed, 
for  I  am  quite  sure  we  are  all  met — and  it  is  helpful 
to  get  this  corroboration  through  a  private  person 
who  knows  nothing  of  the  traditions  or  conventions  of 
the  subject.  It  may  be  said  here  that  Mrs.  Guthrie  is, 
as  she  has  said  to  me  herself,  "A  Celt  of  the  Celts," 
—as  is  also  Capt.  Stuart.  Perhaps  this  has  something 
to  do  with  the  experiences,  for  the  temperament  which 
we  call  Celtic  certainly  seems  more  open  to  psychical 
experiences  than  the  stodgy  Anglo-Saxon  build,  which 
happens  to  be  my  own. 

Mrs.  Guthrie  seems  also  to  have  power  of  the  '  *  phys- 
ical-phenomena" kind.  I  quote  the  following  from  a 
later  letter  of  hers.  After  mentioning  a  desk  in  which 
she  keeps  Capt.  Stuart's  letters,  she  says: — 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  219 

**....  the  last  letter  he  ever  wrote  me,  which  was 
on  the  day  of  his  wounding — December  6 — will  never 
stay  in  the  pocket  with  the  other  letters,  and  on  one 
occasion  when  I  went  to  this  desk  during  this  summer 
I  had  a  shock,  for  not  only  was  the  letter  out  of  the 
pocket  where  I  had  put  it,  but  the  envelope  was  in  one 
corner  with  the  two  sheets  placed  very  tidily  just  be- 
low it,  and  two  little  note-books  which  had  never  been 
taken  out  of  their  different  pockets  in  the  desk,  were 
at  the  other  corner  on  the  pad  very  tidily  packed  on 
top  of  each  other.  I  need  hardly  say  this  desk  is  kept 
locked  and  I  have  the  only  key. 

"Capt.  Stuart  was  awfully  precise  and  tidy.  This  last 
letter,  which  reached  me  a  month  after  his  death,  was 
different  from  any  he  had  written  me  before.  He  was 
ordinarily  very  particular  and  courteous;  this  letter 
was  cheery  and  even  flippant.  .  .  .  Did  I  tell  you  that 
about  a  month  ago  the  room  in  which  he  slept  during 
his  one  and  only  visit  here  is  now  a  sitting  room,  and 
one  night  just  before  we  all  went  to  bed  (the  others 
were  tidying  up  the  room,  the  door  of  which  opposite 
the  fire-place  at  which  I  stood  was  open)  my  at- 
tention was  attracted — why,  I  don't  know — to  the  door. 
First  I  saw  a  kind  of  nebulous  grey  cloud  which  evolved 
into  the  half  of  my  friend,  and  he  was  wearing  the  suit 
in  which  he  came  to  us  in  July,  1914.  I  saw  him  only 
for  a  moment,  and  the  others  saw  nothing. 

"The  grave  incident  in  my  'Mrs.  Caird  of  Arran' 
dream  (July,  1916)  is  odd,  for  it  is  only  three  weeks 
since  (i.e.,  end  of  October — J.  A.  H.)  that  I  read  in 
the  paper  about  desecration  of  graves  at  Gallipoli. 

* '  Some  six  weeks  after  my  last  dream  of  Capt.  Stuart 
I  had  a  dream  of  my  father,  of  whom  I  had  previously 
only  dreamt  in  the  vaguest  way,  as  it  was  ten  years 


220  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

ago  when  he  passed,  a  broken  old  man :  but  when  I  saw" 
him  in  this  dream  he  looked  glorious,  like  Capt.  Stuart ; 
so  fresh,  bright,  clean,  no  trace  of  sorrow  or  suffering, 
beautifully  dressed  and  groomed.  And  he  also  carried 
a  suit-case — an  extraordinary  coincidence.  He  was 
coming  out  of  a  passage  exactly  like  the  one  I  had 
been  in  with  Capt.  Stuart.  Papa  was  coming  out  and 
I  was  waiting  at  the  entrance  with  a  lot  of  women  and 
children.  We  were  on  a  beautiful  rich  plateau  with 
herds  of  sheep,  oxen,  and  goats,  and  the  women  and 
children  were  dressed  in  flowing  white  robes;  one 
woman  had  a  crook  (stick)  and  there  was  a  child  with 
very  golden  curls.  Suddenly  some  one  said,  'He's 
coming/  and  out  of  the  passage  came  my  father.  He 
looked  splendid,  glorious;  they  crowded  round  him; 
he  greeted  some  of  them,  and  then  said:  'Where's 
Flora?'  'Here!'  they  answered,  and  I  was  pushed 
forward.  Papa  kissed  me,  then  held  me  back  from  him 
and  said:  'You  have  done  a  splendid  work,  Flora.' 
He  drew  me  to  him,  kissed  me  again  very  tenderly, 
gave  a  happy  laugh  and  I  awoke." 

Cases  of  this  character  have  occurred  in  all  wars; 
the  present  war  is  no  exception;  only,  until  the  foun- 
dation of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  there  had 
been  no  organized  body  for  the  collection  and  study  of 
such  narratives.  The  few  remaining  cases, — while  oc- 
curring in  wars  prior  to  the  present  one, — are,  never- 
theless, of  the  same  general  character;  and  will  be  of 
interest,  as  indicating  the  similarity  of  the  phenomena, 
and  how  nearly  alike  they  are  in  point  of  fact.  The  first 
case  I  quote  from  M.  Flammarion's  work,  The  Un- 
known: 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  221 

The  Tell-Tale  Wound 

Captain  G.  F.  Russell  Colt,  of  Gartesherrie,  Cam- 
bridgeshire, sends  the  following  narrative : 

"I  had  a  brother  who  was  very  dear  to  me,  my  elder 
brother,  Oliver,  a  lieutenant  in  the  Seventh  Royal 
Fusiliers.  At  the  time  of  which  I  write  he  was  at 
Sebastopol.  I  kept  up  a  regular  correspondence  with 
him.  One  day  he  wrote  as  though  he  were  out  of 
spirits  and  not  well.  I  answered  that  he  must  pluck 
up  heart,  but  that  if  anything  happened  to  him,  he  must 
let  me  know  by  appearing  to  me  in  the  little  room 
where  as  young  fellows  we  had  often  sat  together  smok- 
ing and  gossiping  in  secret.  My  brother  received  this 
letter  just  as  he  was  leaving  his  quarters  to  receive  the 
Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  (The  clergyman 
who  was  the  celebrant  told  me  afterwards.)  After 
Communion  he  went  into  the  trenches.  He  never  came 
back.  A  few  hours  later  the  assault  upon  the  Redan 
took  place.  When  the  Captain  of  his  company  fell, 
my  brother  took  his  place  and  bravely  led  on  his  men. 
Although  he  had  received  several  wounds,  he  had 
crossed  the  ramparts  with  his  men,  when  he  was  struck 
by  a  ball  in  his  right  temple.  He  fell  in  a  heap  with 
other  soldiers.  He  was  found  dead  in  a  sort  of  kneel- 
ing posture,  upheld  by  other  corpses,  thirty-six  hours 
later. 

"His  death  took  place — possibly  he  fell  and  did  not 
die  immediately — September  8,  1855. 

"The  same  night  I  awoke  suddenly.  I  saw,  op- 
posite the  window  and  beside  my  bed,  my  brother  on 
his  knees,  surrounded  by  a  sort  of  phosphorescent 
mist.  I  tried  to  speak  to  him,  but  I  could  not.  And 
yet  I  was  not  frightened.  We  had  been  brought  up 


to  have  no  belief  in  ghosts  and  apparitions,  but  I 
wanted  to  collect  my  thoughts,  because  I  had  not 
dreamed  of  him  nor  been  thinking  of  him,  and  I  forgot 
what  I  had  written  to  him  a  fortnight  before.  I  said 
to  myself  that  it  might  be  an  illusion,  the  reflection 
of  a  moonbeam  on  a  towel,  or  of  something  else.  A 
few  moments  after,  I  looked  again.  He  was  still  there, 
his  eyes  fixed  on  me  with  profound  sadness.  I  tried 
again  to  speak,  but  my  tongue  seemed  tied.  I  could 
not  utter  a  word. 

"I  jumped  out  of  bed.  I  looked  out  of  the  window, 
and  I  saw  that  there  was  no  moonlight.  The  night 
was  dark  and  it  was  raining  heavily,  great  drops  pat- 
tering on  the  window  panes.  My  poor  Oliver  was  still 
there.  I  walked  right  through  the  apparition.  I 
reached  my  chamber  door,  and  as  I  turned  the  knob 
to  open  it  I  looked  back  once  more.  The  apparition 
slowly  turned  its  head  towards  me  and  gave  me  another 
look  full  of  anguish  and  of  love.  Then  for  the  first 
time  I  observed  a  wound  on  his  right  temple,  and  from 
it  trickled  a  little  stream  of  blood.  The  face  was  pale 
as  wax,  but  it  was  transparent. 

* '  I  left  my  room.  I  went  into  that  of  a  friend,  where 
I  lay  down  on  the  sofa  for  the  rest  of  the  night.  I  told 
him  why  I  had  come  into  his  room.  I  also  spoke  of 
the  apparition  to  several  people  in  the  house,  but  when 
I  mentioned  it  to  my  father  he  ordered  me  never  to 
repeat  such  nonsense,  and  above  all  not  to  mention  it 
to  my  mother. 

' '  The  following  Monday  he  received  a  note  from  Sir 
Alexander  Milne,  telling  him  that  the  Redan  had  been 
taken  by  assault,  but  it  gave  him  no  details.  I  asked 
my  friend  to  tell  me  if  he  saw,  sooner  than  I  did,  my 
brother 's  name  among  the  killed  and  wounded.  About 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIEES  223 

a  fortnight  later,  he  came  and  told  me  the  story  of  his 
death. 

*  *  The  Colonel  of  the  regiment,  and  one  or  two  officers 
who  saw  the  body,  sent  me  word  that  the  look  on  the 
face  was  exactly  ivhat  I  had  described.  The  wound 
was  just  where  I  had  seen  it,  but  it  was  impossible  to 
say  if  he  had  died  at  once.  If  he  had,  his  apparition 
must  have  taken  place  some  hours  after  his  death,  for 
I  saw  it  about  two  in  the  morning.  Some  months  later 
they  sent  me  his  little  prayer-book  and  the  last  letter 
I  had  written  him.  They  were  both  found  in  the  inner 
pocket  of  the  tunic  that  he  wore  when  he  died.  I  have 
them  still." 

The  last  three  cases  are  from  Phantasms  of  the 
Living,  and  were  investigated  originally  by  Mr.  Ed- 
mund Gurney.  The  first  is  a  so-called  " Borderland" 
case ;  the  second  a  vision,  and  the  third  more  nearly  a 
true  apparition. 

A  "Borderland"  Case 

1 1  On  September  9th,  at  the  siege  of  Mooltan,  my  hus- 
band, Major-General  Eichardson,  C.  B.,  then  adjutant 
of  his  regiment,  was  most  severely  and  dangerously 
wounded,  and  supposing  himself  dying,  asked  one  of 
the  officers  with  him  to  take  the  ring  off  his  finger  and 
send  it  to  his  wife,  who  at  that  time  was  fully  150 
miles  distant,  at  Ferozepore.  On  the  night  of  Sep- 
tember 9th,  I  was  lying  on  my  bed,  between  sleeping 
and  waking,  when  I  distinctly  saw  my  husband  being 
carried  off  the  field,  seriously  wounded,  and  heard  his 
voice  saying,  'Take  this  ring  off  my  finger  and  send 
it  to  my  wife.'  All  the  next  day  I  could  not  get  the 
sight  or  the  voice  out  of  my  mind.  In  due  time  I  heard 


224  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

of  General  Richardson  having  been  severely  wounded 
in  the  assault  on  Mooltan.  He  survived,  however,  and 
is  still  living.  It  was  not  for  some  time  after  the 
siege  that  I  heard  from  Colonel  L.,  the  officer  who 
helped  to  carry  General  Richardson  off  the  field,  that 
the  request  as  to  the  ring  was  actually  made  to  him, 
just  as  I  had  heard  it  at  Ferozepore  at  that  very  time. 

"M.  A.  RICHARDSON." 

The  following  questions  were  addressed  by  Mr.  Gur- 
ney  to  General  Richardson,  whose  answers  were  ap- 
pended. 

(1)  Does  General  R.  remember  saying,  when  he  was 
wounded  at  Mooltan,  "Take  this  ring  off  my  finger, 
and  send  it  to  my  wife,"  or  words  to  that  effect? 

"Most  distinctly;  I  made  the  request  to  my  com- 
manding officer,  Major  E.  S.  Lloyd,  who  was  support- 
ing me  while  my  man  had  gone  for  assistance.  Major 
Lloyd,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  is  dead." 

(2)  Can  he  remember  the  time  of  this  incident? 
Was  it  morning,  noon,  or  night? 

"As  far  as  memory  serves,  I  was  wounded  about  9 
p.  m.  on  Sunday,  the  9th  of  September." 

(3)  Had  General  R.,  before  he  left  home,  promised 
or  said  anything  to  Mrs.  R.  as  to  sending  his  ring  to 
her,  in  case  he  should  be  wounded? 

"To  my  best  recollection,  never.  Nor  had  I  any 
kind  of  presentiment  on  the  subject.  I  naturally  felt 
that  with  such  a  fire  as  we  were  exposed  to  I  might  get 
hurt." 

[Four  years  after  the  above  was  written,  Mrs.  Rich- 
ardson gave  me  viva  voce  a  precisely  accordant  ac- 
count. She  described  herself  as  a  matter-of-fact  per- 
son, and  does  not  have  fnqucnt  or  vivid  dreams. 


APPAEITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  225 

[The  details  as  to  the  ring  seem  fairly  to  raise  this 
case  out  of  the  category  of  mere  visions  of  absent  per- 
sons who  are  known  to  be  in  danger,  and  with  whom 
the  percipient's  thoughts  have  been  anxiously  en- 
gaged.] 

A  Vision 

From  Colonel  V.,  who  writes,  in  a  letter  dated  March 
llth: — "The  account  was  written  by  me  from  a  state- 
ment made  to  me  by  my  father,  the  late  Capt.  J.  H.  V. 
The  words  are  my  father's,  and  I  wrote  them  as  he 
related  them  to  me. "  Names  were  given  in  confidence. 

"One  of  my  (i.  e.,  Colonel  V.'s,  not  his  father's) 
grand-aunts  was  Mrs.  F.,  married  to  an  officer,  Major 
or  Colonel  F.,  of  the  Dragoons,  serving  in  George  III.  's 
time  in  America.  He  was  killed  at  the  battle  of  Sara- 
toga. My  aunt  lived  at  the  time  in  Portland  Place, 
W.,  and  was  entertaining  a  large  party  one  evening. 
Suddenly  they  remarked  she  seemed  to  be  in  great  pain 
and  agony,  exclaiming  quite  aloud  to  her  guests,  'Oh, 
do  go  home!  I  have  seen  a  most  fearful  sight,  and 
am  compelled  to  break  up  the  party.'  Some  of  her 
most  intimate  friends  asked  her  what  she  had  seen. 
She  replied  that  she  was  certain  'her  husband  F.  had 
been  killed  in  a  battle,  and  that  she  most  distinctly 
saw  his  body  being  carried  to  the  rear  by  his  soldiers. ' 
She  remained  in  great  anxiety  for  weeks,  when  the  sad 
news  confirming  her  vision  arrived  from  America, 
and  that  at  the  hour  she  made  the  exclamation  to  her 
guests,  her  husband,  F.,  of  the  Dragoons  (allowing  for 
difference  of  longitude)  was  killed  in  an  attack  made 
on  the  enemy  at  the  battle  of  Saratoga." 

Colonel  V.  adds,  "An  aunt,  now  deceased,  told  me 
she  was,  when  a  girl,  present  at  the  time  when  (her 


aunt)  Mrs.  F.  called  out  'that  F.  had  been  shot,  and 
that  she  saw  his  body  being  carried  off  the  field  of 
battle/  " 

We  find  from  Burgoyne's  Campaign,  by  Charles 
Neilson  (Albany)  that  Brigadier-General  F.  was 
wounded  at  the  battle  of  Saratoga,  at  2  p.  m.  Oct.  7, 
but  did  not  die  till  8  a.  m.  on  Oct.  8.  From  letters 
and  memoirs  relating  to  the  American  War  of  Inde- 
pendence, by  Madame  Eiedesel,  we  learn  that  he  was 
carried  to  Madame  Eiedesel 's  hut  at  3  p.  m.,  which 
would  correspond  with  about  8  p.  m.  in  London;  and 
that  during  the  afternoon,  while  he  was  lying  mortally 
wounded,  he  frequently  uttered  his  wife 's  name. 

An  Apparition 

"Sir: — Of  many  comrades  who  gave  up  their  lives 
for  Queen  and  country  in  Zululand  and  Natal,  for  none 
have  I,  or  those  who  knew  him,  felt  a  keener  pang  of 
regret  than  for  Rudolph  Gough.  In  November  Gough, 
having  retired  from  the  Coldstream  Guards,  proceeded 
as  a  volunteer  to  Natal,  where  on  arrival  he  was  given 
a  company  in  Commandant  Nettleton's  battalion  of 
the  Natal  Native  Contingent,  with  which  regiment  he 
served  in  the  first  advance  into  Zululand.  To  all  our 
astonishment,  Gough,  who  had  risen  from  a  sick  bed 
in  Durban,  accompanied  by  Lieutenant  George  Davis 
of  his  own  regiment,  arrived  in  camp  at  dusk,  having 
ridden  through  from  Durban,  a  distance  of  82  miles, 
in  little  over  a  day.  Gough,  who  had  suffered  badly 
en  route,  was  again  severely  attacked  by  that  curse  of 
South  African  Armies — dysentery — and  was  ordered 
to  one  of  the  ambulances,  where  he  remained  until  the 


APPARITIONS  OF  SOLDIERS  227 

morning  of  the  action  of  Gingihlovo.  The  moment  the 
alarm  sounded,  the  poor  fellow  staggered  out  and  took 
command  of  his  company,  and  afterward  actually  led 
his  men  over  the  shelter  trench,  when  the  cheer  was 
started  and  the  charge  sounded.  The  excitement  and 
the  exertion  proved  too  much  for  my  poor  friend's  en- 
feebled frame,  and  utter  collapse  followed. 

1  'On  April  17,  just  before  'tattoo,'  I  was  sitting  in 
the  gipsy-looking  edifice  that  the  officers  of  the  King's 
Royal  Rifle  Corps  had  rigged  up,  which  we  dubbed  the 
'mess  house*  or  'banqueting  hall,'  finishing  a  letter  to 
a  newspaper  for  which  I  acted  as  correspondent,  when 
the  brigade  bugler  rang  out  'last  post.'  I  walked  to 
the  door,  outside  of  which  I  saw  standing  the  man 
who,  two  days  ago,  I  had  been  told  was  dying  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Tugela.  I  could  not  describe  on  paper 
the  extraordinary  sensation  that  Gough's  unexpected 
appearance  gave  me.  * 

"Some  few  days  after  I  returned  to  Port  Pearson 
to  re-assume  command  of  the  Natal  Native  Pioneers. 
After  reporting  my  arrival,  I  made  my  way  to  the 
post-office,  where  I  was  much  shocked  at  being  told 
of  my  friend's  death.  The  postmaster  handed  me  a 
telegram,  which  had  been  suffered  to  remain  in  a  pi- 
geon-hole for  some  days,  instead  of  being  sent  on  to  the 
front.  It  was  from  the  civil  surgeon,  who  helped  to 
soothe  the  last  moments  of  my  friend,  and  ran  as  fol- 
lows: 'Captain  the  Hon.  H.  R.  Gough  is  dying.  He 
has  been  asking  for  you  all  day.  Come  down  here  if 
possible.'  On  subsequent  inquiries  at  the  hospital, 
I  found  that  he  had  died  at  exactly  the  hour  I  fancied 
I  had  seen  him  outside  the  mess-house  at  Gingihlovo. 
Prior  to  the  occurrence  I  have  narrated,  I  never  had 


228  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

the  faintest  belief  in  the  actuality  of  supernatural 
phenomena  of  any  nature. 

"STUART  STEPHENS. 

"  (Late  Lieutenant  4th  Battalion  Royal  Dublin  Fusi- 
liers.)" 

Miss  I.  F.  Galwey  writes  to  us  from  5,  Earlsfort 
Terrace,  Dublin,  May  18th : 

"I  met  two  of  young  Gough 's  cousins  on  Saturday; 
and  they  assure  me  that  the  account  given  by  Mr. 
Stephens  is  a  perfectly  authentic  one,  and  is  fully  be- 
lieved by  all  the  family ;  but  they  know  nothing  of  Mr. 
Stephens,  except  that  he  was  a  comrade  of  poor  Ru- 
dolph 's,  and  that  just  before  his  death  he  had  ex- 
pressed an  earnest  desire  to  see  him." 

(The  London  Gazette  for  July  22,  gives  the  date 
of  the  death  of  Captain  Gough,  as  April  19.  It  seems 
very  probable  that  the  "17"  in  Mr.  Stephens'  ac- 
count is  a  misprint.  For  if  he  inquired  at  the  hospital 
and  learnt  the  identity  of  the  hour,  it  is  not  likely  that 
he  made  so  grave  a  mistake  as  to  the  day.  But  from 
the  South  African  Campaign,  by  J.  R.  Mackinnon,  we 
learn  that  Captain  Gough  had  been  desperately  ill  for 
some  days  before  his  death ;  so  that  even  if  the  vision 
did  precede  the  death  by  two  days,  it  might  still  be 
connected  with  his  condition.  It  is  clear,  too,  from  the 
words  of  the  telegram,  that  his  thoughts  had  been  di- 
rected to  the  percipient  for  some  little  time  before  his 
death.) 


CHAPTER  IX 

CLAIRVOYANT   DESCRIPTIONS    OF    DEATH:    DEATH   DESCRIBED 
BY   " SPIRITS" 

THE  physical  shock  which  causes  death  doubtless  de- 
stroys the  physical  body  to  such  an  extent  that  life 
cannot  again  manifest  through  it.  The  body  is  thence- 
forward of  no  further  use  as  a  vehicle  of  spirit ;  it  has 
fulfilled  its  purposes,  and  must  now  disintegrate  and 
return  to  the  dust  whence  it  sprang.  If  the  spirit  of 
man  leaves  the  physical  body,  it  must  do  so  somehow, 
—and  that  process  should  be  capable  of  perception  by 
those  having  properly  trained  vision.  Some  accounts 
of  this  nature  are  given  below. 

After  death,  man  is  thought  to  inhabit  a  vehicle  or 
body  resembling  his  physical  body,  but  composed  of 
finer  matter — an  " astral"  or  "ethereal"  body — the 
11  spiritual  body"  of  St.  Paul.  In  this,  man  lives  and 
functions  for  some  time  at  least.  The  exit  of  this  body 
from  the  physical  body  has  been  minutely  studied, 
and  its  method  of  egress  may  be  said  to  be  fairly  well- 
known.  In  the  following  case,  the  dying  person  was  a 
young  girl,  but  the  process  is  the  same  with  both  sexes ; 
and  we  cannot  doubt  that  what  is  here  described  is 
going  on  in  countless  thousands  of  cases  over  the  bat- 
tle-fields of  Europe. 

The  account  which  follows  is  from  the  pen  of  An- 
drew Jackson  Davis, — a  man  whose  clear  perceptions 
and  intuitions  raised  him  to  the  front-rank  as  a  seer, 

229 


*j:jo  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  TIM;  WAI: 

philosopher  and  thinker,  and  while  the  language  used 
it  times  a  trifle  "flowery"  or  old-fashioned,  one  can- 
not doubt  that  it  seeks  to  set  forth,  as  clearly  as  pos- 
sible, the  actual  facts,  as  they  presented  themsel 
to  the  eye  of  the  "Seer."    He  says: 

"When  the  hour  of  her  death  arrived,  I  was  for- 
tunately in  a  proper  state  of  mind  and  body  to  pro- 
duce the  superior  (clairvoyant)  condition;  but,  pre- 
vious to  throwing  my  spirit  into  that  condition,  I 
sought  the  most  convenient  and  favourable  position, 
that  I  might  be  allowed  to  make  the  observations  en- 
tirely unnoticed  and  undisturbed.  Thus  situated  and 
conditioned,  I  proceeded  to  observe  and  investigate  tin; 
mysterious  processes  of  dying,  and  to  learn  what  it  is 
for  an  individual  human  spirit  to  undergo  the  changes 
consequent  upon  physical  death  or  external  dissolu- 
tion. They  were  these: 

"I  saw  that  the  physical  organization  could  no  longer 
subserve  the  diversified  purposes  or  requirements  of 
the  spiritual  principle.  But  the  various  internal  or- 
gans of  the  body  appeared  to  resist  the  withdrawal 
of  the  animating  soul.  The  body  and  the  soul,  like 
two  friends,  strongly  resisted  the  various  circum- 
stances which  rendered  their  eternal  separation  im- 
perative and  absolute.  These  internal  conflicts  gave 
rise  to  manifestations  of  what  seemed  to  be,  to  the 
material  senses,  the  most  thrilling  and  painful  sensa- 
tions; but  I  was  unspeakably  thankful  and  delighted 
when  T  pen-ej  ved  and  realized  the  fact  that  those  physi- 
cal manifestations  were  indications,  not  of  pain  or  un- 
happiness,  but  simply  that  the  spirit  was  eternally 
dissolving  its  copartnership  with  the  material  or- 
ganism. 

"Now  the  head  of  the  body  became  suddenly  en- 


CLAIRVOYANTS  DESCRIBE  DEATH     231 

v  eloped  in  a  fine,  soft,  mellow,  luminous  atmosphere; 
and,  as  instantly,  I  saw  the  cerebrum  and  the  cere- 
bellum expand  their  most  interior  portions ;  I  saw  them 
continue  their  appropriate  galvanic  functions ;  and 
then  I  saw  that  they  became  highly  charged  with  the 
vital  electricity  and  vital  magnetism  which  permeate 
subordinate  systems  and  structures.  That  is  to  say, 
the  brain,  as  a  whole,  suddenly  declared  itself  to  be 
tenfold  more  positive,  over  the  lesser  proportions  of 
the  body,  than  it  ever  was  during  the  period  of  health. 
This  phenomenon  invariably  precedes  physical  dissolu- 
tion. 

"Now  the  process  of  dying,  or  the  spirit's  depar- 
ture from  the  body,  was  fully  commenced.  The  brain 
began  to.  attract  the  elements  of  electricity,  of  mag- 
netism, of  motion,  of  life,  and  of  sensation,  into  its 
various  and  numerous  departments.  The  head  be- 
came intensely  brilliant;  and  I  particularly  remarked 
that  just  in  the  same  proportion  as  the  extremities 
of  the  organism  grow  dark  and  cold,  the  bram  ap- 
pears light  and  glowing. 

"Now  I  saw,  in  the  mellow,  spiritual  atmosphere 
which  emanated  from  and  encircled  her  head,  the  in- 
distinct outlines  of  the  formation  of  another  head. 
This  new  head  unfolded  more  and  more  distinctly,  and 
so  indescribably  compact  and  intensely  brilliant  did  it 
become,  that  I  could  neither  see  through  it,  nor  gaze 
upon  it  as  steadily  as  I  desired.  While  this  spiritual 
head  was  being  eliminated  and  organized  from  out  of 
and  above  the  material  head,  I  saw  that  the  surround- 
ing aromal  atmosphere  which  had  emanated  from 
the  material  head  was  in  great  commotion ;  but,  as  the 
new  head  became  more  distinct  and  perfect,  this  bril- 
liant atmosphere  gradually  disappeared.  This  taught 


232  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

me  that  those  aromal  elements,  which  were,  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  metamorphosis,  attracted  from  the  sys- 
tem into  the  brain,  and  thence  eliminated  in  the  form 
of  an  atmosphere,  were  indissombly  united  in  accord- 
ance with  the  divine  principle  of  affinity  in  the  universe, 
which  pervades  and  destinates  every  particle  of  mat- 
ter, and  developed  the  spiritual  head  which  I  beheld. 

"In  the  identical  manner  in  which  the  spiritual 
head  was  eliminated  and  unchangeably  organized,  I 
saw,  unfolding  in  their  natural  progressive  order,  the 
harmonious  development  of  the  neck,  the  shoulders, 
the  breast  and  the  entire  spiritual  organization.  It 
appeared  from  this,  even  to  an  unequivocal  demonstra- 
tion, that  the  innumerable  particles  of  what  might  be 
termed  unparticled  matter  which  constitute  the  man's 
spiritual  principle,  are  constitutionally  endowed  with 
certain  elective  affinities,  analogous  to  an  immortal 
friendship.  The  innate  tendencies,  which  the  elements 
and  essences  of  her  soul  manifested  by  uniting  and 
organizing  themselves,  were  the  efficient  and  imminent 
causes  which  unfolded  and  perfected  her  spiritual 
organization.  The  defects  and  deformities  of  her 
physical  body  were,  in  the  spiritual  body  which  I  saw 
thus  developed,  almost  completely  removed.  In  other 
words,  it  seemed  that  those  hereditary  obstructions  and 
influences  were  now  removed,  which  originally  arrested 
the  full  and  proper  development  of  her  physical  con- 
stitution; and,  therefore,  that  her  spiritual  constitu- 
tion, being  elevated  above  those  obstructions,  was 
enabled  to  unfold  and  perfect  itself,  in  accordance  with 
the  universal  tendencies  of  all  created  things. 

"While  this  spiritual  formation  was  going  on,  which 
was  perfectly  visible  to  my  spiritual  perceptions,  the 
material  body  manifested,  to  the  outer  vision  of  ob- 


CLAIRVOYANTS  DESCRIBE  DEATH     233 

serving  individuals  in  the  room,  many  symptoms  of 
uneasiness  and  pain;  but  the  indications  were  totally 
deceptive;  they  were  wholly  caused  by  the  departure 
of  the  vital  or  spiritual  forces  from  the  extremities 
and  viscera  into  the  brain,  and  thence  into  the  ascend- 
ing organism. 

"The  spirit  arose  at  right  angles  over  the  head  or 
brain  of  the  deserted  body.  But  immediately  previous 
to  the  final  dissolution  of  the  relationship  which  had 
for  so  many  years  subsisted  between  the  two,  the 
spiritual  and  material  bodies,  I  saw — playing  energet- 
ically between  the  feet  of  the  elevated  spiritual  body 
and  the  head  of  the  prostrate  physical  body — a  bright 
stream  or  current  of  vital  electricity.  And  here  I  per- 
ceived what  I  had  never  before  obtained  a  knowledge 
of,  that  a  small  portion  of  this  vital  electrical  element 
returned  to  the  deserted  body  immediately  subsequent 
to  the  separation  of  the  umbilical  thread ;  and  that  that 
portion  of  this  element  which  passed  back  into  the 
earthly  organism  instantly  diffused  itself  through  the 
entire  structure,  and  thus  prevented  immediate  de- 
composition. 

"As  soon  as  the  spirit,  whose  departing  hour  I  thus 
watched,  was  wholly  disengaged  from  the  tenacious 
physical  body,  I  directed  my  attention  to  the  move- 
ments and  emotions  of  the  former;  and  I  saw  her 
begin  to  breathe  the  most  interior  or  spiritual  portions 
of  the  surrounding  terrestrial  atmosphere.  At  first 
it  seemed  with  difficulty  that  she  could  breathe  the 
new  medium;  but  in  a  few  seconds  she  inhaled  and 
exhaled  the  spiritual  elements  of  nature  with  the  great- 
est possible  ease  and  delight.  And  now  I  saw  that  she 
was  in  possession  of  exterior  and  physical  proportions, 
which  were  identical,  in  every  possible  particular — • 


234  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

improved  and  beautified — with  those  proportions  which 
characterized  her  earthly  organization.  Indeed,  so 
much  like  her  former  self  was  she  that,  had  her  friends 
beheld  her  as  I  did,  they  certainly  would  have  ex- 
claimed— as  we  often  do  upon  the  sudden  return  of  a 
long-absent  friend,  who  leaves  us  and  returns  in  health 
—'Why,  how  well  you  look !  How  improved  you  are !' 
Such  was  the  nature — most  beautifying  in  their  ex- 
tent— of  the  improvements  that  were  wrought  upon 
her. 

' 'I  saw  her  continue  to  conform  and  accustom  her- 
self to  the  new  elements  and  elevating  sensations  which 
belong  to  the  inner  life.  I  did  not  particularly  notice 
the  workings  and  emotions  of  her  newly-awakening 
and  fast-unfolding  spirit,  except  that  I  was  careful  to 
remark  her  philosophical  tranquillity  throughout  the 
entire  process,  and  her  non-participation  with  the  dif- 
ferent members  of  her  family  in  their  unrestrained 
bewailing  of  her  departure  from  the  earth,  to  unfold 
in  Love  and  Wisdom  throughout  eternal  spheres.  She 
understood  at  a  glance  that  they  could  only  gaze  upon 
the  cold  and  lifeless  form,  which  she  had  but  just  de- 
serted ;  and  she  readily  comprehended  the  fact,  that  it 
was  owing  to  a  want  of  true  knowledge  upon  their 
parts,  that  they  thus  vehemently  regretted  her  merely 
physical  death. 

"The  period  required  to  accomplish  the  entire 
change  which  I  saw  was  not  far  from  two  hours  and 
a  half;  but  this  furnished  no  rule  as  to  the  time  re- 
quired for  every  spirit  to  elevate  and  reorganize  it- 
self above  the  head  of  the  outer  form.  Without  chang- 
ing my  position  or  spiritual  perceptions  I  continued  to 
observe  the  movements  of  her  new-born  spirit.  As 
soon  as  she  became  accustomed  to  her  new  elements 


CLAIRVOYANTS  DESCRIBE  DEATH     235 

which  surrounded  her,  she  descended  from  her  elevated 
position,  which  was  immediately  over  the  body,  by  an 
effort  of  the  will-power,  and  directly  passed  out  of  the 
door  of  the  bedroom  in  which  she  had  lain,  in  the  ma- 
terial form,  prostrated  with  disease  for  several  weeks. 
It  being  in  a  summer  month,  the  doors  were  all  open, 
and  her  egress  from  the  house  was  attended  with  no 
obstruction.  I  saw  her  pass  through  the  adjoining 
room,  out  of  the  door,  and  step  from  the  house  into 
the  atmosphere !  I  was  overwhelmed  with  delight  and 
astonishment  when,  for  the  first  time,  I  realized  the 
universal  truth  that  the  spiritual  organization  can 
tread  the  atmosphere,  which  is  impossible  while  in  the 
coarser  earthly  form — so  much  more  refined  is 
man's  spiritual  constitution.  She  walked  in  the  at- 
mosphere as  easily,  and  in  the  same  manner,  as  we 
tread  the  earth  and  ascend  an  eminence.  Immediately 
upon  her  emergemenfr  from  the  house,  she  was  joined 
by  two  friendly  spirits  from  the  spiritual  country, 
and  after  tenderly  recognizing  and  communing  with 
each  other,  the  three,  in  the  most  graceful  manner, 
began  ascending  obliquely  through  the  ethereal  envel- 
opment of  her  globe.  They  walked  so  naturally  and 
fraternally  together  that  I  could  scarcely  realize  the 
fact  that  they  trod  the  air — they  seemed  to  be  walking 
upon  the  side  of  a  glorious  but  familiar  mountain.  I 
continued  to  gaze  upon  them  until  the  distance  shut 
them  from  my  view, — whereupon  I  returned  to  my  ex- 
ternal and  ordinary  condition." 

This  account  of  the  facts — of  what  actually  hap- 
pened at  death — is  confirmed  by  numerous  other  wit- 
nesses, who  agree  as  to  the  main  details.  For  ex- 
ample, a  nurse  (who  evidently  had  some  clairvoyant 


236  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

power)   and  who  has  worked  at  the  front  for  some 
months,  writes: — 

"  'There  is  no  death;  what  seems  so  is  transition,' 
wrote  Longfellow  in  one  of  his  inspired  poems.  This 
is  no  mere  expression  of  poetic  fancy,  but  a  plain  state- 
ment of  fact;  that  transition  I  have  often  seen.  For 
something  like  a  score  of  years  I  was  a  professional 
nurse;  many  deaths  I  have  witnessed.  And  many 
times  I  beheld  the  spirit  body  rise  from  the  discarded 
earthly  body,  in  appearance  an  etherealized,  glorified 
replica  of  it.  No  traces  of  disease  or  suffering  did  I 
ever  see  on  the  radiant  faces  of  those  thus  transformed. 
Striking  at  times  was  the  contrast  which  they  pre- 
sented to  the  human  features, — emaciated  by  debility 
or  deep-furrowed  by  pain." 

Death  Described  by  "Spirits" 

Several  soldiers  have  apparently  returned  from 
their  new  homes  in  the  " spirit  world"  to  tell  the  par- 
ticulars concerning  their  sensations  immediately  after 
being  * '  killed ' '  by  rule  or  cannon  ball.  They  relate  how 
they  intuitively  or  spiritually  (of  course  somewhat 
vaguely)  realized  the  nature  of  the  accident,  and  that 
they  had  just  "died,"  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  word, 
but  they  did  not  feel  anything  like  pain — being  only 
disposed  to  sleep  very  profoundly,  regardless  of  the 
place,  and  forgetful  of  what  had  happened  to  them. 
This  indifference  has  in  many  instances  resulted  in  a 
kind  of  slumber  for  many  days  in  the  other  world. 

Writing  (through  a  medium)  of  his  experiences,  soon 
after  "passing  over,"  one  communicator  says: — 

"Now  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  'Soul'  be- 
comes the  body  of  the  spirit  after  death.  This,  how- 


CLAIRVOYANTS  DESCRIBE  DEATH     237 

ever,  is  not  the  work  of  a  moment.  Whole  hours, 
sometimes  days,  are  consumed  in  perfecting  the  work 
of  this  final  organization.  While  this  beautiful  pro- 
cess is  going  forward,  the  spirit  does  not  feel  anything 
physical  or  sensuous.  It  is  all  intuition,  and  memory, 
and  meditation,  and  love.  Its  personality  is  not  self- 
conscious,  until  the  new  senses  in  the  new  body  are 
completed  and  opened,  and  adapted  to  the  use  and 
everlasting  duration  of  the  spirit.  We  repeat,  when 
the  death  is  natural — and  no  death  is  natural,  save  that 
of  'ripe  old  age' — then  the  spirit  is  immediately  clothed 
with  its  new  body.  It  does  not  sleep,  feels  no  sus- 
pension of  identity,  realizes  no  penalty  for  physiologi- 
cal injury  which  is  the  effect  of  an  accidental  death, 
and  thus  the  aged  one  is  young  and  happy,  and  free 
as  is  an  uncaged  bird  among  the  trees  of  the  moun- 
tain. .  .  . 

"The  soldier  need* not  'dread'  the  temporary  sus- 
pension of  his  personal  consciousness,  should  he  fall 
in  battle,  because  there  is  in  the  experience  no  pain- 
only  a  confusion  for  a  moment,  a  surprise  of  an  in- 
stant's duration,  as  though  the  whole  world  had  burst 
into  countless  atoms,  succeeded  by  a  flash  of  universal 
light  which  reveals  a  vast  darkness,  and  then — in- 
difference, rest,  happiness,  slumber.  Directly  the  atoms 
composing  the  'Soul'  begin  to  assemble  about  you — 
the  spirit — while  you  live  in  intuition,  in  memory,  in 
meditation,  and  in  love — all  unconscious  of  a  personal- 
ity or  locality,  without  apprehension,  perfectly  free — 
indifferent,  restful,  slumbering.  The  sublime  assur- 
ance that  you  are  floating  in  the  Spirit  of  the  infinite 
Father  and  Mother — that  no  sparrow  falleth  unob- 
served— that  nothing  is  wrong — that  everything  is 
right  where  you  are — this  assurance,  singing  like  the 


238  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

affectionate  song  of  a  loving  mother  in  your  spirit's 
depths,  will  lull  you  to  sleep,  dreamlessly  and  yet  alive 
and  thoughtful,  in  the  downy  cradle  of  eternity. 

"  Therefore  fear  not  the  physical  sensations  con- 
sequent upon  a  sudden  death  at  the  'cannon's  mouth.' 
Fear,  rather,  the  moral  disadvantages  accruing  from  a 
struggle  in  which  the  inspiration  of  universal  Free- 
dom is  not  at  once  the  mainspring  and  the  end  to  be 
attained." 

Another  soldier,  purporting  to  communicate  through 
a  medium,  and  speaking  of  the  details  of  his  transi- 
tion, and  the  joy  he  experiences  in  thus  coming  back 
and  being  enabled  to  communicate  with  his  earth- 
friends,  says : — 

"After  a  spirit  has  dissolved  its  connection  with  the 
earthy  tabernacle,  known  as  the  body,  it  is  tired;  and 
especially  if  it  has  suffered  long  with  the  disease  which 
sent  it  out.  Then  there  comes  a  period  of  blissful 
peace  and  rest.  You  lie,  as  it  were,  in  a  dreamy  state, 
such  as  you  often  experience  in  the  morning  when, 
between  waking  and  sleeping,  such  pleasures  come. 
The  spirit  friends  hover  about  it,  giving  it  strength 
from  their  own  magnetic  influences,  comforting  it,  lull- 
ing it  as  the  mother  lulls  her  child  to  rest,  until  such 
time  as  strength  is  given  it  to  think  and  act  for  it- 
self. It  was  thus  in  my  case.  I  went  out  suddenly, 
in  full  strength,  consequently  it  did  not  take  long  for 
me  to  awaken  to  the  enjoyments  and  delightful  in- 
fluences everywhere  about  me.  The  shock  was  ter- 
rible, and  it  was  very  sad  for  me  to  witness  the  grief 
of  my  friends  on  earth.  It  took  a  long  time  for  me 
to  become  reconciled  to  this  change  of  conditions.  I 
was,  so  far  as  my  presence  was  concerned,  at  home  in 
my  father's  house  as  much  as  ever  I  was.  I  heard 


every  word  uttered,  saw  the  sadness,  and,  as  it  were, 
lived  it,  and  felt  as  keenly  as  did  any  one  of  my  rela- 
tives ;  but  still  I  could  not  make  myself  known.  The 
door  of  communication  was  shut,  and  they  did  not  be- 
lieve nor  countenance  this  doctrine  of  Spiritual  re- 
turn. They  scouted  it,  and  their  unbelief  has  been 
one  of  my  hardest  burdens  to  bear,  for  if  they  would 
only  open  the  door  of  their  hearts  and  let  me  in,  it 
would  be  so  comforting  to  us  all.  The  family  would 
then  become  reunited  through  the  bonds  of  spirit-com- 
munication, and  we  should  all  taste  of  the  realities  of 
immortality.  But  I  must  not  digress  nor  be  too  par- 
ticular. To  resume: — 

"I  remained  about  the  house  and  followed  the  mem- 
bers of  my  family  closely  for  a  long  time,  and  was 
very  unhappy.  The  good  spirit-friends  did  all  they 
could  for  me,  but  I  refused  to  be  comforted.  I  wished 
to  talk  to  father  and  mother,  and  hosts  of  other  dear 
relatives.  Others  could  talk  to  their  friends,  but  I 
could  not.  One  day,  as  this  medium  well  knows,  I  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  possession  of  her,  .  .  .  and  there 
made  myself  known.  It  was  a  joyful  hour  to  me ;  but 
not  so  joyful  as  when  I  found  I  could  control  the 
tongue  and  pen  of  the  person  now  writing  this.  My 
sorrow  departed.  Gladness  filled  my  heart.  I  could 
commune  with  earth  friends,  and  my  possibilities  of 
doing  good  were  enlarging.  Then  I  commenced  to  be 
happy,  and  to  understand  the  philosophy  and  signif- 
icance of  this  life,  its  duties,  and  its  vast  connections. 
In  coming  to  the  medium,  I  found  I  was  benefiting  him 
as  well  as  gratifying  myself.  My  friends  here  noticed 
the  change,  and  to  me  was  imparted  a  duty  of  develop- 
ing and  helping  him  in  every  possible  manner — a  very 
pleasant  duty,  and  one  which  I  have  performed  to  the 


240  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

best  of  my  ability,  and  one  which  I  always  shall  per- 
form, as  we  are,  in  spirit,  more  to  each  other  than 
we  ever  dreamed  of.  I  see  now  clearly.  ..." 

Still  another,  writing  through  the  hand  of  Mrs.  E., 
an  automatic  writer,  says : — 

"I  want  you  to  believe  your  friends  live  still  and 
can  think  of  you.  .  .  .  On  opening  the  eyes  of  my 
spiritual  body  I  found  myself  unaltered,  no  terror,  only 
a  strange  feeling  at  first,  then  peace,  a  comforted  heart, 
love,  companionship,  teaching.  I  am — (giving  here  his 
full  name),  and  have  written  this,  but  your  brother— 
(giving  the  name)  is  here  and  wants  to  speak  to  you." 

After  an  interval  Mrs.  E.  felt  her  hand  again  im- 
pelled to  write,  and  the  following  message  came : — 

"I  am  here  (giving  her  brother's  name)  and  want  to 
tell  you  about  my  awakening  into  spirit  life.  I  was  at 
first  dimly  conscious  of  figures  moving  in  the  room  and 
round  the  bed.  Then  the  door  was  closed  and  all  was 
still.  I  then  first  perceived  that  I  was  not  lying  on 
the  bed,  but  seemed  to  be  floating  in  the  air  a  little 
above  it.  I  saw  in  the  dim  light  the  body  stretched 
out  straight  and  with  the  face  covered.  My  first  idea 
was  that  I  might  reenter  it,  but  all  desire  to  do  this 
soon  left  me — the  tie  was  broken.  I  stood  upon  the 
floor,  and  looked  round  the  room  where  I  had  been  so 
ill  and  been  so  helpless,  and  where  I  could  once  more 
move  without  restraint.  The  room  was  not  empty. 
Close  to  me  was  my  father's  father  (giving  the  name 
correctly).  He  had  been  with  me  all  through.  There 
were  others  whom  I  love  now,  even  if  I  did  not  know 
much  of  them  then.  I  passed  out  of  the  room,  through 

the  next,  where  my  mother  and were  (relatives 

still  in  this  life),  I  tried  to  speak  to  them.  My  voice 
was  plain  to  myself,  and  even  loud,  yet  they  took  no 


CLAIRVOYANTS  DESCRIBE  DEATH      241 

notice  of  all  I  could  say.  I  walked  through  the  col- 
lege rooms;  much  blackness  but  some  light.  Then  I 
went  out  under  the  free  heavens.  I  will  write  more 
another  sitting — power  too  weak  now.  Good-night." 
(His  signature  follows.) 

At  another  sitting  a  night  or  two  later,  the  same 
name  was  written,  and  the  thread  of  the  preceding 
narrative  was  abruptly  taken  up  without  any  preface : 

"I  saw  the  earth  lying  dark  and  cold  under  the  stars 
in  the  first  beginning  of  the  wintry  sunrise.  It  was 
the  landscape  I  knew  so  well,  and  had  looked  at  so 
often.  Suddenly  sight  was  born  to  me;  my  eyes  be- 
came open.  I  saw  the  spiritual  world  dawn  upon  the 
actual,  like  the  blossoming  of  a  flower.  For  this  I 
have  no  words.  Nothing  I  could  say  would  make  any 
of  you  comprehend  the  wonder  of  that  revelation,  but 
it  will  be  yours  in  time.  I  was  drawn  as  if  by  affinity 
to  the  world  which  is  BOW  mine.  But  I  am  not  fettered 
there.  I  am  much  drawn  to  earth,  but  by  no  unhappy 
chain.  I  am  drawn  to  those  I  love ;  to  the  places  much 
endeared." 


CHAPTER  X 

OUE  DEAD   SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE! 

IN  the  preceding  Chapter,  we  have  seen  that  something 
leaves  man  at  death,  and  it  now  remains  for  us  to  show 
that  this  "something"  possesses  memory  and  intelli- 
gence— that,  in  short,  it  is  still  the  same  man  we  knew ; 
and  that  he  continues  to  persist  in  much  the  same  way 
that  he  always  did, — that  he  is  the  same  individual 
we  knew  here.  In  considering  this  question,  we  must 
put  "orthodox"  conceptions  out  of  our  minds, — as 
being  far  from  the  truth, — and  think  of  the  departed 
one  as  being  just  as  he  always  was, — bright,  happy,  and 
young ;  freed  from  the  cares  and  sorrows  of  this  life ; 
living  in  a  new  world  which  he  has  just  entered  and  is 
about  to  explore.  This  is  the  spiritistic  teaching; 
this  is  what  is  told  us  by  those  who  have  apparently 
come  back  to  inform  us  of  the  road  we  too  must  one 
day  travel ;  and  I  shall  accordingly  set  forth,  here,  the 
details  (as  precise  and  accurate  as  possible)  concern- 
ing the  spirit's  exit  from  the  body  and  its  entrance 
into  the  world  of  spirit, — asking  the  reader  to  remem- 
ber that  in  what  follows  the  majority  of  the  state- 
ments were  either  "communicated"  to  us  through  some 
medium,  or  are  a  summary  of  these  statements,  ex- 
pressing as  concisely  as  possible  the  views  therein  set 
forth.  These  statements  are  supported  by  others,  com- 
ing from  men  and  women  who  have  had  exceptional 
opportunities  of  obtaining  the  facts, — or  who  have, 

242 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!       243 

apparently,  communicated  with  their  dear  ones  more 
or  less  directly. 

What,  then,  happens  to  the  soldier  who  has  been 
killed  in  action;  who  has  "gone  west,"  to  join  his  com- 
rades who  have,  perchance,  preceded  him?  "VVe  know 
that  his  body  has  been  buried;  that  is  no  more.  We 
believe  that  his  spirit  survives;  that  it  inhabits  some 
sort  of  vehicle,  resembling  a  body,  and  that  it  retains 
all  the  powers  and  faculties  of  this  life.  What  happens 
to  the  soldier  at  death? 

One  communicator  replies  to  this  query  as  follows  :— 

' '  To  make  this  point  clear,  let  us  briefly  review  what 
has  happened  to  those  noble  'boys'  who  sprang  to 
the  colours  at  the  call  of  Duty,  and  without  thought 
of  self,  shouldered  the  rifle,  went  forth  like  modern 
Crusaders  to  meet  the  common  foe,  fought  bravely  in 
the  trenches,  and  fell  as  martyrs  and  heroes  that  others 
might  live.  Have  they  'died'  in  any  real  sense? 
No!  Have  they  gone  out  of  existence  as  the  beasts 
that  perish?  A  thousand  times  No!  Are  they,  then, 
still  alive?  Yes!  And  are  they  the  self-same,  dear, 
loving,  natural  *  boys'  as  when  they  moved  amongst 
us  and  caressed  us  in  our  homes?  A  thousand  times 
Yes!  There  is  only  one  change — they  have  simply 
lost  their  physical  bodies.  The  real  man,  the  immortal 
ego,  remains  absolutely  unaltered  by  the  process  of 
Death.  In  the  language  of  the  Bishop  of  London:  'A 
man  is  exactly  the  same  five  minutes  after  death  as  he 
was  five  minutes  before  death.'  That  is  absolutely 
true. 

"These  deathless  'boys,'  then,  are  still  precisely  the 
same  today  in  all  their  essential  characteristics  as  when 
enveloped  in  their  mortal  robe.  They  have  carried 
forward  all  their  feelings  of  affection  toward  their 


244  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

loved  ones  on  the  earth,  all  their  cherished  desires,  all 
the  possessions  in  their  treasure-house  of  memory, 
and  all  their  little  idiosyncrasies  of  character.  None 
of  these  things  belong  to  the  physical  body.  They  are 
the  attributes  of  the  spiritual  man,  and  consequently 
they  endure  after  the  raiment  of  flesh  has  been  dis- 
carded. 

' '  Death  does  not  transform  a  man  into  either  a  saint 
or  a  devil.  He  awakens  to  spiritual  consciousness 
with  the  impression  firmly  imbedded  in  his  mind  that 
he  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  just  as  he  was  when 
functioning  on  the  terrestrial  plane.  The  change,  in 
fact,  is  so  imperceptible  at  first  that  many  of  those 
who  have  passed  through  the  'Gateway'  positively 
refuse  to  believe  they  have  'died'!  If  they  have  ex- 
perienced illness  they  naturally  feel  free  from  pain, 
but  they  attribute  this  to  the  fact  that  they  have 
suddenly,  and  by  some  inexplicable  means,  become  con- 
valescent. That  they  have  'died'  is  altogether  an 
irrational  explanation.  The  ideas  that  have  been  in- 
stilled into  their  minds  concerning  the  meaning  of 
Death  had  not  been  realized  in  the  slightest  degree; 
there  had  been  no  dread  and  no  terror ;  they  had  not 
consciously  crossed  the  'dark  waters  of  Jordan'; 
they  had  not  been  transferred  to  the  mythical  Heaven 
of  their  imagination ;  they  were  manifesting  in  a  body 
similar  in  form  to  the  physical  vesture;  everything 
around  them  seemed  as  natural  and  as  objective  as 
the  things  of  earth;  they  felt  the  same  impulses  and 
the  same  desires,  and  the  general  environment  pro- 
duced by  their  mental  activity  seemed  exactly  the  same 
as  before.  How,  then,  could  it  be  said  that  they  have 
'died'!  They  might  feel  that  'something'  had  hap- 
pened, but  what  that  'something'  was  they  would  be 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!      245 

unable  to  explain.  'Death'  would  be  the  last  explana- 
tion to  offer! 

"The  days  pass,  teachers  take  them  in  hand,  and 
very  soon  the  conviction  dawns  upon  them  that  they 
must  have  'died'  after  all!  Then  they  become  con- 
cerned for  those  they  have  left  behind,  and  knowing 
they  must  be  mourning  their  departure,  they  are  ac- 
companied to  their  former  homes  by  friendly  guides 
and  endeavour  to  impress  the  dear  ones  with  a  sense 
of  their  actual  presence.  Alas,  the  effort  often  fails! 
The  grief  of  the  bereaved  has  erected  an  impenetrable 
barrier — a  dense  wall  of  grey  mist,  which  spiritual 
vibrations  are  unable  to  influence.  Imagine  the  disap- 
pointment and  sorrow  that  follows — a  loving  heart 
thwarted  in  its  mission  of  mercy.  Such  a  soul  realizes 
all  the  grief  that  pervades  the  home,  and  is  powerless 
to  afford  relief.  This  experience  is  going  on  in  count- 
less homes  today,  and  all  because  the  people  have 
never  been  taught  the  glorious  truths  of  Spiritual 
Philosophy.  And  it  is  not  until  the  grief  has  abated 
that  the  loving  messenger  from  the  Summerland  can, 
in  varying  degrees,  according  to  impressibility,  or 
otherwise,  of  the  mourner,  become  a  'ministering 
spirit' — such  as  those  St.  Paul  refers  to — to  afford 
solace,  inspiration  and  cheer  to  those  so  much  in  need 
of  help. 

"Is  it  any  wonder  that,  possessing  a  knowledge  of 
these  spiritual  truths,  we  desire  to  proclaim  them  from 
the  housetops!  Is  it  not  time  that  men  and  women 
were  plainly  told  that  there  is  not  only  one,  but  two 
parties  affected  by  the  condition  created  by  a  death 
in  a  family!  The  spiritual  and  the  material  inter- 
penetrate, and  it  is  very  easy  for  us  to  mar  the  happi- 
ness of  our  friends  in  the  Beyond  by  indulgence  in 


246  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

inordinate  grief  at  their  transition.  This  is  why  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  is  constantly  entreating  those  bereaved 
by  the  war  to  endeavour,  as  far  as  is  humanly  possible, 
to  modify  their  distress.  And  every  experienced  in- 
vestigator endorses  this  entreaty." 

"Few  families,"  says  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  "have  not 
been  struck  down  by  some  calamity  during  the  years 
of  war.  I  want  to  point  out  that  death  is  not  so  serious 
a  matter — it  is  a  transition,  a  natural  process  of  eman- 
cipation of  the  soul  from  the  body — dissolution  but  not 
extinction.  When  people  think  of  the  body  lying  in 
the  grave  they  should  not  think  of  the  person  as 
associated  with  that  body.  The  body  is  only  a  transi- 
tory thing  of  70  or  80  years,  but  that  which  has  grown 
within  that  body  will  persist.  We  must  think  of  the 
transitoriness  of  the  body  and  the  permanence  of  the 
soul.  It  is  necessary  to  realize  that  character  is  a 
possession  which  lasts  throughout  eternity.  That 
character  we  form  here,  we  take  with  us,  we  cannot 
get  away  from  it.  Suicide  does  not  help  at  all.  We 
only  take  ourselves  with  us  into  the  next  life,  nothing 
else. 

*  *  Death  by  violence  is  a  calamity,  but  do  not  mourn 
unduly  for  those  that  are  gone,  for,  as  Macaulay  says, 
'They  were  in  some  sort  happy  in  the  opportunity  of 
their  death. '  This  kind  of  death  has  in  it  an  element 
of  sacrifice,  of  redemption,  which  we  may  hope  will  be 
accounted  to  them.  Let  us  realize  the  magnitude  and 
complexity  of  the  universe.  Perhaps  we  may  yet  find 
that  it  is  our  bodily  disability  which  prevents  us  seeing 
the  vast  amount  of  intelligence  and  help  working  with 
us.  Let  us  try  to  think  of  those  who  are  gone  as  not 
really  gone,  but,  unseen  by  us,  yet  working  with  us  in 
a  glorious  scheme  of  help  and  pity.  We  must  change 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!       247 

to  something  higher.  The  angels  keep  their  ancient 
order,  and  we  do  not  know  what  we  shall  become,  but 
there  are  all  grades  of  being  up  from  man  to  Deity. 
This  vision  is  not  purely  imaginary.  The  great  men 
of  the  race  are  not  deceived,  and  they  say  even  more 
than  we  do." 

A  letter  recently  received  from  one  who  had  lost  his 
son  in  battle  says : — 

"We  have  spoken  with  our  boy  (killed  in  action) 
many,  many  times:  in  fact,  it  is  now  a  regular  thing, 
and  this  is  what  he  said  recently: 

"  'Do  you  know,  Dad,  I  don't  think  you  can  quite 
grasp  it.  Do  you  know  that  the  "boys"  suffer  more 
here  when  they  return  home  in  spirit  and  are  refused 
a  hearing  than  ever  they  suffered  on  the  battle  field? 
They  know  they  are  alive,  and  try  to  appraise  their 
loved  ones  of  the  fact,  only  to  be  met  with,  and  encom- 
passed by,  waves  of  tormenting  grief.  This  is  why  I 
bring  so  many  of  them  through  to  you,  Dad.' 

"The  question  is,  how  can  we  open  the  eyes  of  the 
many  parents  and  friends  to  the  truth  of  this — how 
essential  it  is  not  to  grieve?  I  am  willing  to  do  any- 
thing I  can  for  the  'Boys'  who  have  given  their  lives 
that  I  may  continue  to  live  in  freedom.  I  am  not  con- 
cerned about  the  parents.  If  they  will  remain  blind 
then,  perhaps,  it  is  well  they  should  suffer.  It  is  the 
'Boys'  I  am  thinking  of.  What  can  we  do  to  make 
the  way  easier  for  them!" 

The  following  interesting  account  appeared  in  the 
Harbinger  of  Light,  February,  1918.  It  is  evidently 
an  editorial  summary  of  the  detailed  case,  as  sub- 
mitted :  The  writer  says : — 

Our  New  Zealand  contributor,  who  writes  under  the 
nom-de-plume  of  ' '  Simeon, ' '  and  an  article  from  whose 


248  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

pen  appeared  in  the  January  issue  of  this  journal— 
in  which  he  declared  that  he  had  established  indis- 
putable communication  with  his  soldier  son,  who  was 
"killed"  on  the  Somme,  in  September,  1916,  has  for- 
warded to  us  what  appears  to  be  a  very  good  test  of 
identity  given  by  his  soldier  boy.  About  six  months 
after  he  passed  away,  he  purported  to  speak  to  a  Mr. 

A ,  through  the  organism  of  Mrs.  A ,  both  of 

whom,  it  should  be  explained,  were  known  to  the  lad 
before  he  left  for  the  war. 

"Do  you  remember  the  last  time  we  met1?"  said  the 

communicant  to  Mr.  A .     "You  spoke  to  me  in 

the  Garden,  near  the  Boys'  High  School.  I  was  hav- 
ing my  lunch,  and  the  war  was  not  then  thought  of." 

Mr.  A confirms  the  truth  of  this  statement,  and 

then  proceeds  to  relate  much  more  striking  comments 
made  by  the  boy. 

"Will  you  convey  my  love  to  father  and  mother,  and 
my  brothers — thank  God  they  have  not  gone  to  war. 
Tell  my  dear  mother  not  to  hold  any  fanciful  ideas 
of  me,  or  to  believe  every  so-called  message  she  may 
receive.  Tell  her  I  owe  her  all  that  is  best  in  me,  for 
she  is  brave  and  good,  and  I  would  do  anything  possi- 
ble to  smooth  her  path  in  life.  Tell  her  one  particular 
thing  that  will  assure  her  of  my  presence — tell  her  that 
the  day  she  prevented  me  from  going  out  birds '  nest- 
ing, and  took  so  much  trouble  to  instruct  us  in  the 
right,  I  decided  always  to  try  to  do  what  was  right. 
Tell  her  the  recollection  of  the  anecdote  she  told  us 
always  haunted  me.  Tell  her  I  have  not  gone  to  any 
restful  spiritual  home  yet,  and  probably  will  not  till 
the  war  ends.  Tell  her  I  cannot  be  a  shirker  in  the 
body  or  out  of  it,  but  having  been  trained  with  many 
good  comrades  to  do  my  duty,  I  try  to  do  it  still,  and 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!       249 

if  I  were  permitted  I  could  tell  you  so  much  we  do  to 
help  those  still  fighting — much  that  is  sanctioned  and 
assisted,  too,  by  others  higher  than  ourselves,  but  I 
dare  not  stay.  Tell  mother  that  I  was  quite  suddenly 
shot  out  of  the  body,  and  felt  no  pain  whatever,  and 
thanks  to  the  insight  I  had  received  through  my  par- 
ents, and  you,  and  others,  I  simply  folded  my  arms 
and  had  a  good  look  at  my  body,  and  thought,  'Well, 
is  that  all ! '  I  could  not  wrench  myself  away  from  the 
body  immediately,  and  accompanied  it  when  carried  off 
by  stretcher-bearers  to  the  dressing  station,  because 
the  body  was  not  quite  dead,  but  I  felt  no  pain.  How 
long  it  was  before  I  lost  the  consciousness  of  my  ma- 
terial body  I  cannot  say,  but  the  freedom  I  now  feel, 
and  the  active  part  I  am  taking  in  what  occupied  me 
so  much  before  death  is  my  duty,  and  it  seems  natural 

and  right.    Besides,  Mr.  A ,  there  are  many  pledges 

my  comrades  and  I  made  to  each  other  in  the  face  of 
death,  which  are  sacred,  and  must  be  kept,  if  possible. 
But  I  cannot  stop  now.  Good-bye,  Mr.  A ,  good- 
bye. I  am  so  delighted  to  have  spoken  to  you.  Tell 
father  and  mother  they  need  have  no  regrets,  and  that 
my  present  activities  are  more  valuable  and  quite  as 
natural  as  when  I  was  in  the  flesh,  and  they  will  know 
it  is  the  right  and  proper  course  till  time  changes  af- 
fairs. Good-bye." 

With  regard  to  the  birds '  nesting  incident,  the  cor- 
respondent writes — "This  one  particular  thing  does 
assure  his  mother  of  his  presence,  because  it  was  one 
of  those  things  only  knoum  to  the  boy  and  herself. 
Nothing  concerning  the  incident  could  possibly  have 

been  in  the  mind  of  either  Mr.  A or  the  medium, 

and  this  is  why  he  emphasized  the  sending  of  it  through 
to  his  mother.  Some  years  ago  the  lad  spoke  of  going 


250  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

birds '  nesting  and  his  mother  impressed  upon  him  how 
cruel  it  was  to  break  down  the  home  so  carefully  pre- 
pared by  the  parents  for  their  young,  illustrating,  in 
story  form,  the  tragedy  of  some  great  giant  coming 
and  ruthlessly  smashing  up  her  home,  and  destroying 
her  children. 

It  is  "trifles"  of  this  character,  as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
emphasizes,  which  are  so  valuable  in  accumulating  evi- 
dence of  identity,  and  seeing  that  the  circumstance  was 
known  only  to  the  mother  and  her  boy,  the  item  be- 
comes somewhat  impressive  from  the  evidential  point 
of  view.  It  may  be  of  interest  to  add  that  twice  dur- 
ing the  interview  the  boy  appeared  to  be  told  by  the 
guide  that  "he  must  not  stay  long,"  and  on  each  oc- 
casion he  gave  the  ordinary  military  salute,  and  re- 
plied, "Yes,  sir!"  This  conversation  took  place  six 
months  after  the  lad's  death.  Since  then,  he  has  fre- 
quently communicated  in  the  home  circle,  and  is  still, 
in  a  very  real  sense,  "one  of  the  family!" 
Another  writes  to  the  same  magazine : — 
What  a  difference  it  would  make  in  the  lives  of 
countless  thousands  of  bereaved  ones  if  they  could  only 
realize  that  these  statements  are  literally  true — that 
their  heroic  fathers,  husbands,  sons,  are  no  more  dead 
than  when  they  wore  the  robe  of  mortality,  that  they 
are,  in  fact,  more  alive  than  ever,  that  they  are  re- 
joicing in  the  fruits  of  sacrifice,  and  are  often  at  the 
front  performing  deeds  of  mercy !  All  their  interests 
and  sympathies  remain,  and  when  they  are  not  on  the 
battle-field  they  are  in  their  former  homes  endeavour- 
ing to  console  the  mourners  and  lift  the  veil  which 
hides  them  from  physical  view.  This  consciousness 
of  their  continued  existence,  and  that  they  are  just  the 
same  as  formerly — the  same  in  appearance  and  the 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIEES  YET  LIVE!      251 

same  in  their  affections — would  lift  a  load  from  many 
a  broken  heart  and  shed  a  ray  of  hope  across  the  dis- 
mal vista  of  the  future.  And  this  sense  of  relief  would 
become  intensified  if  these  sorrowing  and  soul-crushed 
relatives  could  feel  assured  that  they  had  received  a 
message  from  the  fallen  hero,  and  that  all  was  well 
with  "the  boy.'*  As  Ernest  Renan  expresses  it:  "If 
we  could  but  once  a  year  exchange  two  words  with  our 
loved  and  lost,  Death  would  be  no  longer  Death.'* 
Thank  God,  this  "exchange"  is  taking  place  in  thou- 
sands of  instances  today.  "Every  week  I  know  of  a 
new  case  where  a  stranger  goes  to  a  medium  and  gets 
into  touch  with  a  relative,"  states  Sir  Oliver  Lodge. 
The  psychic  journals  of  England  are  full  of  cases  of 
parents  "discovering"  their  boys  who  were  "killed" 
in  the  trenches — the  severed  connection  has  been  re- 
stored, and  great  joy  has  followed  this  blessed  reunion 
of  loving  hearts. 

These  experiences  can  be  repeated  in  the  lives  of 
every  mourner  if  they  will  only  put  aside  prejudices, 
and,  in  spirit,  seek  to  re-establish  communication  with 
the  loved  one.  It  must  not  be  imagined,  however,  that 
we  are  advocating  the  practice  described  as  * '  running 
after  mediums. ' '  We  do  not  approve  of  extremes  of 
any  kind.  But  we  do  maintain  that  every  father  and 
every  mother,  who  has  given  a  boy  as  part  of  the  price 
of  victory  in  this  awful  war,  is  entitled  to  know  where 
that  boy  is  today,  and  how  he  fares  in  the  realm  of  end- 
less life.  And  we  declare,  further,  that  that  knowledge 
can  be  theirs  if  they  will  only  investigate.  It  is  not  a 
matter  of  "calling  up"  a  somnolent  soul,  who  is  popu- 
larly supposed  to  be  "  asleep  within  the  tomb. ' '  There 
is  no  "calling  up"  about  it.  These  "boys"  are  very 
much  alive,  and  are  eagerly  awaiting  an  opportunity 


252  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAS 

to  assure  their  desponding  relatives  and  friends  that 
"All  is  well."  They  are,  in  fact,  far  more  anxious 
to  communicate  than  those  they  have  left  behind  are 
to  go  to  a  medium  to  hear  what  they  have  to  say. 

The  writer  of  these  lines  has  not  yet  lost  a  relative 
in  the  war.  But  he  has  lost  a  score  from  natural 
causes  in  England  since  he  has  been  in  this  country, 
and  although  none  of  them  were  known  in  this  coun- 
try, they  have  all  reported  themselves  through  dif- 
ferent mediums,  and,  in  some  cases,  succeeded  in  con- 
clusively establishing  their  identity, — have  given  the 
nick-names  by  which  the  writer  knew  them  as  a  boy, 
and  related  intimate  details  of  family  history  of  thirty 
years  ago!  Every  experienced  investigator  has  had 
similar  experiences.  This  explains  the  confidence 
with  which  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Sir  William  Crookes, 
Sir  William  Barrett,  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  and  a 
host  of  other  noted  scientific  men  speak  and  write  on 
the  subject.  It  is  only  those  who  have  never  investi- 
gated that  deny  the  facts — ignorance  sitting  in  judg- 
ment on  knowledge!  We  do  not  know  whether  the 
Eev.  Ernest  Jenkins,  M.  A.,  Congregational  minister, 
of  Leeds,  is  a  student  of  the  Spiritual  Philosophy.  If 
not,  he  seems  to  have  learned  its  truths  all  the  same. 
Preaching  a  memorial  sermon  recently  concerning  the 
death  of  Lieutenant  Harry  Scholefield,  who  died  from 
wounds  received  in  action,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Jenkins  said  :— 

"This  life  is  but  a  fragment  of  our  existence,  a 
fragment  which,  by  itself,  has  no  meaning ;  its  meaning 
is  rooted  in  an  eternal  past  and  carried  on  in  an  eternal 
future.  We  are  on  the  steps  of  a  stair,  with  many 
steps  beneath  us  and  many  yet  above.  What  we  call 
dying  is  just  stepping  higher.  Harry  Scholefield  not 
only  lives,  but  is  in  conscious  and  intimate  touch  with 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!      253 

us  here.  He  has  not  passed  to  a  land  'far,  far  away/ 
but  is  near  at  hand.  He  is  no  doubt  resting  after  the 
awful  experience  through  which  he  has  passed;  but 
soon,  quite  soon,  he  will  be  refreshed  and  take  up  the 
duties  and  pleasures  which  await  him  in  his  new  life. 
Memory  does  not  cease  with  death;  we  carry  it  with 
us  beyond  the  grave.  And  having  memory,  his  loved 
ones  left  behind  are  constantly  in  his  thoughts.  I 
can  imagine  him  saying  to  some  of  the  other  valiant 
souls  who  have  laid  down  their  young  lives  for  us : — 
'I  wish  my  folks  would  not  worry.  I'm  all  right.  I'm 
proud  and  happy  to  have  laid  down  my  life  in  such  a 
cause.  I  want  them  to  go  on  in  the  same  useful,  lov- 
ing and  happy  way  as  when  I  was  with  them  in  the 
body.  My  death  is  a  cause  for  pride,  not  pessimism,— 
fuller  service,  not  less.'  In  some  such  words,  I  feel 
confident,  he  is  speaking. ' ' 

This,  of  course,  is*  the  Spiritualistic  view  entirely, 
and  whether  the  preacher  was  aware  of  the  circum- 
stances or  not,  the  fact  remains  that  the  imaginary 
message  he  placed  on  the  lips  of  the  fallen  soldier 
bears  a  very  striking  resemblance  to  the  sentiments 
uttered  by  many  of  these  returned  heroes.  They  are 
more  than  satisfied  with  their  present  condition,  and 
their  chief  concern  is  to  remove  the  grief  occasioned 
by  their  departure.  When  will  rational  and  comfort- 
ing sermons  of  this  character  be  more  generally 
preached?  Not  until  the  Church  recovers  its  lost-out 
knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  death  and  the  conditions 
prevailing  in  the  world  beyond.  It  is  spiritual  illu- 
mination that  the  Church  needs  today, — a  Pentecostal 
outpouring  that  shall  galvanize  the  dry  bones  of  ortho- 
doxy into  exuberant  life,  and  open  the  eyes  of  those 
who  are  "blind  leaders  of  the  blind."  In  the  mean- 


254  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

time,  Spiritualism  offers  to  the  bereaved  the  solace 
which  the  Church  fails  to  afford.  "Come  unto  Me, 
all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden  and  I  will  give 
you  rest."  That  was  the  divinely  sympathetic  invi- 
tation of  olden  time,  and  a  similarly  appealing  offer  is 
today  extended  in  the  name  of  Spiritualism  to  all  who 
are  staggering  beneath  some  crushing  blow  inflicted  by 
the  war.  *  '  Oh,  for  the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand,  and 
the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still. ' ' 

And  another  correspondent  writes : — 

"  'But  what  of  those  who  meet  sudden  death  in  bat- 
tle?' some  may  ask.  'Do  angels  also  meet  them  when 
they  enter  the  other  life?' 

"Aye,  verily  they  do.  I  testify  not  only  to  that 
which  I  have  been  told  by  'angels,'  but  to  that  which 
I  have  seen.  For  often  I  have  been  liberated  from 
my  physical  body,  though  not  by  death,  and  sometimes 
have  been  transported  to  battlefields.  And  there  I 
have  seen  angels — hosts  of  angels — ministering  to  the 
wounded  and  dying  and  bearing  those  away  who  have 
been  killed — not  their  mangled  corpses,  but  their  spirit 
bodies,  unscathed  by  shot  or  shell.  .  .  . 

"Nothing  with  which  we  are  familiar  in  this  life 
is  more  generally  misunderstood  than  death.  Of  all 
the  many  gifts  which  our  Father  in  Heaven  bestows 
on  us  it  is,  I  think,  the  best.  As  it  has  been  revealed 
to  me,  it  is  the  crowning  proof  of  Divine  love.  Death 
is  but  a  rebirth  into  another  life  which,  for  those  who 
seek  good  and  not  evil,  is  a  broader,  freer  life  than 
this — in  a  life  in  which  the  best  that  is  in  them  finds  am- 
pler scope  for  development;  and  in  which,  as  they 
progress,  they  obtain  a  deeper  realization  of  the  love 
of  God  than  is  possible  here,  and  joy  unspeakable  in 
serving  Him." 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!       255 

Still  another,  who  has  received  constant  and  assur- 
ing communications  from  his  son,  killed  at  the  Dar- 
danelles, writes : — 

"  Unfortunately,  there  are  but  few,  comparatively 
speaking,  who  have  had  a  realization  of  the  channel 
open  for  communication,  prior  to  the  catastrophic  blow 
falling  so  suddenly  upon  the  nation.  Consequently  they 
have  been  caught  unprepared.  My  sympathy  is  with 
all  such,  and  as  one  who  has  followed  the  open  path 
for  many  years,  I  write  in  love  of  my  fellow-sufferers. 

"It  was  quite  different  in  the  case  of  our  dear  boy. 
From  early  childhood  he  was  brought  up  to  know  and 
appreciate  the  fact  that  'nothing  is  hid,'  in  except  so 
far  as  we  hide  it  from  ourselves  by  self-imposed  limita- 
tions,— the  outcome  of  ignorance.  Though  only  twenty 
when  he  left  for  Gallipoli,  he  had  been  privileged  to 
see  full  sized  materializations,  and  had  affectionate 
knowledge  of  and  kind  regard  for  some  sisters  pos- 
sessed of  the  power  of  mediumship.  We  were,  there- 
fore, not  much  surprised  when  some  three  months  after 
he  fell  on  the  Somme  front,  he  gave  us  evidence  of 
his  presence.  We  did  not  hurry.  We  did  not  ask. 
We  waited,  leaving  it  to  him  to  come  in  his  own  good 
time,  but  we  never  failed  to  send  him  loving  thoughts. 
He  had  been  resting,  and  regaining  his  strength, — 
hence  some  delay. 

4 'And  how  real  he  was!  Absolute  proof  of  his  liv- 
ing presence  has  again  and  again  been  given  to  us. 
And  how  he  thanked  us  for  having  brought  him  up 
in  the  knowledge  of  the  Truth !  It  had,  he  said,  made 
his  passing  so  easy,  while  our  loving  thoughts  had 
helped  to  re-invigorate  him.  And  what  joy  it  was  to 
him  to  come  back  and  find  response  in  us, — that  both 
he  and  we  might  know  that  nothing  can  ever  break 


256  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

the  cords  of  love.  Lucidly  he  explained  to  us  how  he 
now  saw  from  both  sides — we  seeing  from  only  one; 
he  therefore  could  speak  with  knowledge  while  we  must 
accept  much  of  the  truth  in  faith. 

' '  How  we  all  love  our  '  Boys ' !  And  how  much  our 
nation  has  done  and  is  doing  for  them,  irrespective  of 
cost.  Here  then  is  a  simple  thing  we  might  do :  Think 
in  reality  of  those  who  have  gone !  Speak  to  them  in 
love!  Pray  for  them  to  the  All  Father,  the  All-per- 
vading Source  of  Life,  the  Divine  Spirit,  'in  Whom  we 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being. ' 

"If  I  could  only  tell  you,  too,  of  the  many  com- 
panions he  has  brought  with  him  and  assisted  to  speak, 
you  would  no  longer  ask  why  I  am  so  anxious  to  write 
this  message.  Do  I  not  love  all  those  who  have  fought 
and  died,  for  us  who  are  older,  that  we  may  continue 
to  enjoy  rights  of  freedom?  Therefore  it  is,  I  plead 
with  those  who  have  lost  one  who  is  near  and  dear 
to  them  to  give  him  a  welcome  home  in  reality,  and 
send  him  continual  thought-waves  of  love.  This  is 
what  the  dear  ones  long  for  us  to  do.  God  is  Love, 
and  Love  is  the  never-failing  channel  of  communica- 
tion. 

"Only  last  night  our  beloved  boy  was  again  with 
its,  and  spoke  for  nearly  two  hours,  almost  as  freely 
as  when  present  with  us  in  the  flesh,  and  great  and 
lovely  is  the  work  he  is  engaged  upon.  And  so,  of  all 
who  have  'passed  over'  none  are  missing  or  forgotten. 
He  told  us  he  had  been  privileged  to  see  The  Master, 
and  to  bow  within  the  radiant  Light  of  His  all  pervad- 
ing love  for  the  children  of  men,  for  the  Sons  of  God 
who  are  fighting  onward  along  the  path  of  tribulation. 
Wherefore,  brothers  in  affliction,  'be  of  good  cheer/ 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!       257 

for  this  is  the  path  by  which  all  must  move  'out  of 
darkness  into  His  marvellous  light.'  ' 

Doubtless,  it  is  this  certainty,  which  is  thus  obtained 
through  direct  and  personal  communication  with  the 
dearly-beloved  departed-one,  which  gives  assurance 
to  many  which  they  would  not  otherwise  have,  and 
buoys  them  up  in  a  new  faith  and  with  new  courage. 
M.  Maeterlinck  indeed  had  occasion  to  notice  this,  and 
the  feelings  of  surprise  he  experienced  when  first  he 
encountered  it,  in  a  woman  whose  son  had  been  killed 
at  the  front,  for  he  says  (The  Light  Beyond) : — 

The  other  day  I  went  to  see  a  woman  whom  I  knew 
before  the  war — she  was  happy  then — and  who  had 
lost  her  only  son  in  one  of  the  battles  in  the  Argonne. 
She  was  a  widow,  almost  a  poor  woman;  and,  now  that 
this  son,  her  pride  and  her  joy,  was  no  more,  she  no 
longer  had  any  reason  for  living.  I  hesitated  to  knock 
at  the  door.  Was  I  not  about  to  witness  one  of  those 
hopeless  griefs  at  whose  feet  all  words  fall  to  the 
ground  like  shameful  and  insulting  lies  ?  Which  of  us 
today  is  not  familiar  with  these  mournful  interviews, 
this  dismal  duty? 

To  my  great  astonishment,  she  offered  me  her  hand 
with  a  kindly  smile.  Her  eyes,  to  which  I  hardly 
dared  raise  my  own,  were  free  of  tears* 

"You  have  come  to  speak  of  him,"  she  said,  in  a 
cheerful  tone;  and  it  was  as  though  her  voice  had 
grown  younger. 

* '  Alas,  yes !  I  had  heard  of  your  sorrow ;  and  I  have 
come.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  I  too  believed  that  my  happiness  was  irre- 
parable; but  now  I  know  that  he  is  not  dead." 

"What!  He  is  not  dead?  Do  you  mean  that  the 
news  .  .  .  I  But  I  thought  that  the  body  ..." 


258  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

"Yes,  his  body  is  over  there;  and  I  have  even  a 
photograph  of  his  grave.  Let  me  show  it  to  you.  See, 
that  cross  on  the  left,  the  fourth  cross:  that  is  where 
he  is  lying.  One  of  his  friends,  who  buried  him,  sent 
me  this  card  and  gave  me  all  the  details.  He  suffered 
no  pain.  There  was  not  even  a  death  struggle.  And 
he  has  told  me  so  himself.  He  is  quite  astonished  that 
death  should  be  so  easy,  so  slight  a  thing.  .  .  .  You 
do  not  understand  f  Yes,  I  see  what  it  is :  you  are  just 
as  I  used  to  be,  as  all  the  others  are.  I  do  not  explain 
the  matter  to  the  others ;  what  would  be  the  use  ?  They 
do  not  wish  to  understand.  He  is  more  alive  than  he 
ever  was;  he  is  free  and  happy.  He  does  just  as  he 
likes.  He  tells  me  that  one  cannot  imagine  what  a  re- 
lease death  is,  what  a  weight  it  removes  from  you, 
nor  the  joy  Which  it  brings.  He  comes  to  me  when 
I  call  him.  He  loves  especially  to  come  in  the  even- 
ing; and  we  chat  as  we  used  to.  He  has  not  altered; 
he  is  just  as  he  was  on  the  day  he  went  away, — only 
younger,  stronger,  handsomer.  We  have  never  been 
happier,  more  united,  nearer  to  one  another.  He  di- 
vines my  thoughts  before  I  utter  them.  He  knows 
everything ;  but  he  cannot  tell  me  everything  he  knows. 
He  maintains  that  I  must  be  wanting  to  follow  him  and 
that  I  must  wait  for  my  hour.  And,  while  I  wait,  we 
are  living  in  a  happiness  greater  than  that  which  was 
ours  before  the  war, — a  happiness  which  nothing  can 
ever  trouble  again.  ..." 

And  the  happiness  and  the  certainty  which  is  thus 
obtained  can  never  again  be  lost.  The  assurance  that 
the  son  still  lives  has  proved  too  deep  for  eradication. 
Her  son  had  been  lost — yes;  but  he  was  still  "there," 
waiting  for  her;  still  the  same  boy  he  always  had 
been;  for  the  self  which  is  lost  in  service  is  not  lost, 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!       259 

but  found.  "He  that  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall 
find  it,"  said  the  Nazarene.  And  this  has  been  amply 
borne  out  by  the  present  war.  As  a  contributor  to  a 
recent  issue  of  the  International  Psychic  Gazette  ex- 
presses it: — 

"Self  lost  in  Service!"  This  is  the  essence  of  the 
Christ-life:  the  manifestation  of  the  Christ  upon  the 
earth,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  terrors  and  desolation 
caused  by  the  world-war,  yes,  even  because  of  it,  this 
spirit  is  developing  and  unfolding  in  many  a  human 
soul  today.  "Self  lost  in  Service"  is  the  greatest 
antidote  to  all  sadness  and  weariness  the  world  ever 
has  or  can  ever  know.  It  is  indeed  a  spiritual  anaes- 
thetic which  sootheth  to  slumber  the  restless  heart- 
ache, while  the  great  Angel  of  Pain  probes  and  cuts 
and  prepares  for  the  greater  healing  which  is  to  fol- 
low. And  when  to  this  loving  service  is  added  the 
knowledge  that  so-called  Death  is  but  an  episode  in 
Life — a  great  adventure  for  the  spirit — and  that  com- 
munion is  possible,  and  in  some  cases  even  easy,  then 
indeed  is  the  river  of  tears  between  the  two  states 
dried  and  the  veil  is  not. 

Two  cases  within  my  circle  of  friends  illustrate  this. 
A  young  girl  whom  we  will  call  Heather,  is  affianced 
to  a  brave  young  soldier.  He  leaves  his  love  and  his 
country  and  yields  up  his  life  on  the  great  sacrificial 
altar  of  the  battlefields  of  France.  When  Heather 
hears  the  news,  she  is  distracted,  overwhelmed.  Then 
she  learns  that  spiritual  communion  is  possible,  and  by 
chance,  she  is  brought  in  contact  with  a  sensitive  who 
sees  and  describes  to  her  her  soldier  lover.  Soon  she 
is  invited  to  sit  in  a  small  spiritual  circle,  and  to  her 
surprise  she  becomes  clairvoyant  and  clairaudient ; 
that  is,  she  sees  those  who  have  passed  through  death's 


260  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAE 

portals,  she  hears  their  voices,  and  for  her  there  is 
a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth;  former  things  have 
passed  away — she  has  not  lost  her  lover,  death  has  not 
divided  them.  The  consciousness  of  his  presence  lifts 
her  heart  and  soul  above  the  things  of  earth;  she  is 
still  his  and  he  is  hers,  and  these  two  know  that  they 
are  one  forever,  that  theirs  is  a  marriage  made  in 
heaven,  which  the  cold  blasts  of  earth  can  never  chill, 
and  now  Heather  looks  forward  to  the  day  when  her 
lover  and  herself  shall  work  together  in  the  great 
spiritual  harvest-fields,  and  shall  do  such  work  as  they 
might  never  have  accomplished  had  he  remained  in 
the  physical  body.  Daily  he  visits  her  now  and  in- 
forms her  of  his  movements  and  his  progress,  and 
tells  her  how  he  attends  lectures  at  the  halls  of  learn- 
ing, and  studies  in  the  colleges  in  the  Great  Beyond, 
and  how  one  of  the  special  subjects  he  is  learning,  and 
graduating  for,  is  the  different  methods  of  control- 
ling earth  mediums  and  the  ways  of  efficiency  guarding 
them  from  obsession. 

Oh,  how  natural  and  sane  is  life  beyond!  This 
brave  soldier-lover  is  not  a  white-winged  angel  in 
some  far-off  state,  neither  is  he  in  the  orthodox  hell, 
but  he  is  just  Heather's  lover,  working  for  her  good, 
and  learning  the  best  means  of  communing  with  her 
and  protecting  her ;  and  doubtless  ere  long  his  studies 
will  bear  fruit,  for  he  is  a  strong  determined  man  of 
character  and  high  ideals.  He  is  years  older  than 
Heather,  and  she  trusts  him  implicitly,  and  looks  for- 
ward eagerly  to  the  day  when  he  will  be  able  to  use 
her  as  his  conscious  instrument  upon  the  earth,  when 
they  both  shall  minister  to  the  spiritual  needs  of  the 
earth-treaders.  So  Heather  does  not  now  weep  for 
her  lost  love.  Faith  has  been  crowned  by  knowledge, 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!       261 

and  both  faith  and  knowledge  are  now  dedicated  to 
divine  service  for  humanity.    Truly  as  Tennyson  says : 

"The  veil  is  rending  and  the  voices  of  the  day 
Are  heard  across  the  voices  of  the  dark." 

Another  girl,  whom  we  will  call  Dot,  loves  a  brave 
fellow  who  is  no  stranger  to  the  facts  of  spiritual 
science.  He  imparts  to  her  some  of  his  knowledge. 
She  is  not  particularly  impressed  with  the  average 
Spiritualistic  meetings.  Mere  phenomena,  necessary 
as  these  are  as  stepping  stones,  do  not  satisfy.  She 
feels  in  her  soul  that  there  is  something  greater  to 
attain  to.  The  war  breaks  out.  Her  lover  does  what 
many  other  brave  men  have  done,  he  gives  himself 
to  his  country.  In  May  of  last  year  he  comes  home 
on  leave;  they  are  married;  the  young  bride  is  left 
in  her  father's  home.  The  very  next  month  the  hus- 
band is  reported  "wounded  and  missing."  Does  Dot 
give  way  to  selfish  repining  and  unavailing  regret? 
No :  in  this  state  of  life  and  beyond,  she  was  and  is — 
his,  so  there  is  no  room  for  regret  whatever  may  be  his 
fate.  But  her  intuition  tells  her  that  he  has  not  passed 
into  spirit-life,  although  from  that  fateful  day  in  June 
last  to  this,  she  has  had  no  word  of  him.  What  does 
she  do?  She  sets  to  work  to  cheer  up  his  own  people, 
who  grieve  so  terribly  about  his  unknown  fate,  and 
then  she  thinks  also  of  the  "gifts  of  the  spirit,"  and 
desires  earnestly  "the  best."  She  starts  Bitting  for 
automatic  writing,  and  very  soon  gets  many  cheering 
messages;  then  she  determines  to  develop  her  own 
spiritual  gifts  for  service,  and  is  invited  to  join  our 
circle  for  development.  She  decides  that  if  develop- 
ment is  possible  to  her,  she  will  not  be  used  by  any 
spirit  to  pamper  the  curiosity  of  a  mere  wonder-seeking 


262  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

crowd,  but  that  the  temple  of  her  body  shall  be  a  shrine 
consecrated  to  the  use  of  angels  who  work  in  the  service 
of  love.  The  weeks  go  by,  and  Dot's  unfoldment  pro- 
ceeds. Then  a  spirit  who  has  guarded  her  for  long, 
although  unknown  to  her,  speaks,  and  we  are  told  that 
an  intelligence  of  high  degree,  in  response  to  the  sen- 
sitive's appeal,  wishes  her  prepared  for  his  use.  Soon, 
we  are  given  to  understand,  this  lofty  spirit  will 
speak  in  public  through  Dot.  Now,  all  Dot's  spare 
time  is  given  to  her  own  preparation  to  become  a  link 
in  the  chain  which  unites  highest  heaven  to  deepest 
hell,  to  be  a  channel  through  whom  waves  of  Christ-love 
may  reach  the  earth  and  even  outer  states.  .  .  . 

So  here  again  "Self  lost  in  Service"  leaves  no  room 
for  selfish  repining.  Thus  are  the  lessons  being  learned 
which  "The  Mighty  Angel  of  Tribulation"  came  to 
earth  to  teach.  Thus  are  sparks  of  divine  being 
fanned  into  flame,  and  these  shall  kindle  many  another 
spark,  until  by  degrees  every  other  spirit  throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  Universe  shall  release 
themselves  as  part  of  the  Eternal  Flame — that  Power 
which  men  call  God. 

I  cannot  do  better,  perhaps,  than  to  conclude  in  the 
fine  words  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  who,  in  a  recent  article 
entitled  "A  Message  of  Hope  to  the  Bereaved," 
says : — 

And  how  can  man  die  better 

Than  facing-  fearful  odds, 
For  the  ashes  of  his  fathers 

And  the  temples  of  his  gods, 

And  for  the  gentle  mother 

Who  dandled  him  to  rest, 
And  for  the  wife  who  nurses 

His  infants  at  her  breast. 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!       263 

So  sings  the  poet  concerning  the  heroic  defence  of 
ancient  Rome ;  and  so  has  come  the  call  to  us  in  mod- 
ern England;  to  fight  for  the  women-folk,  as  always, 
and,  this  time,  for  an  exceptionally  large  and  noble 
cause. 

In  this  conflict  we  are  all  engaged,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, for  the  iron  machinery  of  war  has  turned  out 
to  be  as  essential  as  the  muscles  and  sinews  to  wield 
it. 

Some  are  called  to  sacrifice  leisure  and  home  and 
occupation;  some  are  called  on  for  their  lives.  But 
there  is  no  lack  of  response,  for  we  know  that  we  are 
passing  through  one  of  the  great  crises  in  the  human 
history  of  this  planet. 

It  has  been  expedient  that  many  men  should  die 
for  the  nation,  and  not  for  this  nation  only,  but  for  the 
whole  cause  of  free  civilization  and  Christianity.  An 
organized  system  of*  devilish  morality  had  reared  its 
head  in  Europe,  and  had  deceived  the  unfortunate  peo- 
ple who  had  succumbed  to  its  specious  promises  and 
temptations,  and  had  seemed  to  be  justified  by  success. 

A  conflict  was  inevitable  sooner  or  later — a  con- 
flict in  which  the  forces  of  evil  must  be  thoroughly 
vanquished,  that  it  may  be  known  by  bitter  experience 
that  they  lead  to  destruction  after  all.  A  nation  can- 
not sell  its  soul  to  the  devil  with  impunity  any  more 
than  can  an  individual.  Wickedness  may  flourish  like 
a  green  bay  tree,  but  in  the  fulness  of  time  it  is  cut 
down,  dried  up,  and  withered. 

An  object-lesson  in  morality,  a  veritable  crusade, 
this  war  has  been  called,  and  the  nomenclature  is  just. 
Our  gallant  troops  are  agents  of  the  powers  of  good, 
as  truly  as  ever  were  human  agents  called  to  a  specific 


264  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

work.    In  the  highest  cause  they  have  been  called  upon 
to  suffer  and,  if  need  be,  to  die. 

But  the  suffering  is  far  wider  spread,  the  bereaved 
and  sorrowful  are  in  piteous  case,  and  it  is  on  their 
behalf  that  an  opportunity  has  been  given  me  of  say- 
ing a  few  words  of  comfort  and  hope. 

For  what  is  death?  A  natural  process  through 
which  all  living  things  must  pass,  a  stage  in  the  jour- 
ney of  existence.  An  important  station,  truly ;  we  do 
more,  on  arrival,  than  change  to  another  line.  Death 
is  more  like  a  Port  of  departure,  where  we  leave  our 
land  conveyance  and  launch  out  on  a  new  medium.  In 
that  sense  only  can  it  be  likened  to  a  terminus.  Death 
is  a  great  adventure,  it  is  in  no  sense  a  termination 
of  existence. 

By  too  many  death  has  been  thought  of  as  an  end, 
a  cessation  of  existence,  a  sudden  and  complete  stop- 
page. It  is  not  so;  but  it  was  a  natural  mistake  to 
make,  because  it  has  been  singularly  difficult  to  get 
messages  back.  Away  the  emigrants  have  sailed,  on 
the  ocean  of  a  new  life,  and  had  no  means  of  sending 
word  of  their  progress  to  mourners  on  the  shore. 

They  have  found  means  now.  The  silence  is  no 
longer  unbroken.  I  doubt  if  the  silence  was  ever  quite 
complete,  but  it  served.  It  was  more  than  sufficient 
to  cause  despair  and  to  constrain  people  to  think  of 
their  loved  ones  as  buried  in  the  earth  or  sea  and  to 
lament  their  fate  hopelessly  and  wildly.  This  horrible 
blunder  need  no  more  be  made. 


The  pangs  of  separation  are  bad  enough  without  this 
added  torment,  which  is  both  gratuitous  and  false.  It 
was  torment  on  both  sides,  too.  For,  though  we  might 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!       2G5 

be  out  of  touch  with  them,  they  were  not  wholly  igno- 
rant of  us.  They  might  know  very  little  of  what  we 
were  doing,  but  affection  is  a  strong  link,  and  they 
could  feel  and  be  distressed  by  our  hopeless  sorrow. 

They  do  not  wish  to  be  mourned  in  that  way;  they 
feel  strong  and  vigorous,  active  and  useful ;  they  ought 
not  to  be  lamented  unduly.  Sorrow  that  is  natural  and 
human  is  their  due,  but  it  should  be  full  of  love  and 
hope  and  sympathy,  as  theirs  is  for  us.  Their  mes- 
sages tell  us  that  they  are  well,  that  they  are  happy, 
that  life  is  keenly  interesting,  and  even  more  exhila- 
rating than  when  pent  up  in  the  bodily  mechanism 
from  which  they  have  been  liberated. 

Yet  bereavement  is  painful;  death  in  the  prime  of 
life  is  tragic,  the  premature  loss  of  an  earthly  phase  of 
existence  is  a  great  deprivation.  True;  but  without 
sacrifice  is  no  remission ;  the  sacrifice  is  their  glory  and 
honour  and  patent  •  of  nobility.  The  cause  being 
worthy,  they  are  happy  in  the  opportunity  of  their 
death.  And  we  that  are  left  behind  must  rejoice  with 
them  in  their  fruition  and  eager  helpfulness,  and  must 
temper  our  sorrow  with  abundant  hope. 

It  will  be  asked:  How  do  I  know  so  positively,  so 
assuredly,  that  death  is  not  the  end,  that  it  is  only  a 
transition,  a  change  of  conditions,  a  quitting  of  the 
material  life,  and  an  entry  into  another  mode  of  ex- 
istence under  different  conditions?  Though  I  have 
reason  to  think  that,  for  ordinary  people,  the  new  sur- 
roundings will  be  not  altogether  dissimilar  to  the  sur- 
roundings here.  Not  by  religion,  not  by  faith,  have 
I  been  guided  to  this  knowledge,  but  by  simple  follow- 
ing of  fact.  Speculative  thought  might  easily  suggest 
the  contrary — in  my  case  at  one  time  it  did — but  my 
business  as  a  scientific  man  has  been  not  to  speculate 


266  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

but  to  grope,  to  examine  all  manner  of  facts,  and  to 
follow  the  light  faithfully  whithersoever  it  might  lead. 

Denials,  negations,  assumptions  of  impossibility  are 
easy  to  make,  but  unless  they  are  well  founded  they 
are  misleading.  The  restricted  outlook  of  those  who 
have  limited  their  study  to  bodily  structure  and  func- 
tions is  quite  natural  and  readily  understood.  The 
living  body  is  a  beautiful  piece  of  mechanism,  full  of 
physical  and  chemical  laws  in  entirely  normal  activity. 

Given  a  suitable  stimulus,  everything  that  can  hap- 
pen in  the  inorganic  world  can  be  traced  working  in 
the  same  way  in  the  fabric  of  animals  and  plants.  And 
those  who  have  discovered  this  and  are  still  working  at 
its  details  sometimes  get  carried  away  by  their  enthu- 
siasm and  add  to  their  splendid  sheaf  of  positive  in- 
formation the  gratuitous  surmise,  the  baseless  hypo- 
thesis, that  the  body  which  they  study  is  the  whole  of 
man.  And  that  when  man's  material  machinery  is  ir- 
retrievably damaged  and  discarded  there  is  nothing 
left. 

Well,  without  further  examination  of  specific  psy- 
chological facts,  it  might  seem  so,  but  when  we  come 
to  grips  with  the  facts  we  find  that  it  is  not  so.  The 
whole  personality  persists:  the  memory,  the  charac- 
ter, the  affections  are  all  unchanged.  The  individual 
soul,  if  so  it  may  be  called,  has  entered  another  re- 
gion of  service,  and  has  some  diiferent — perhaps 
ethereal — mode  of  manifestation :  one  that  does  not  ap- 
peal directly  to  our  senses  at  all,  so  that  the  animating 
spirit  seems  to  have  gone  altogether  beyond  our  ken. 

Beyond  our  ordinary  physical  ken,  yes :  but  a  men- 
tal link  remains.  The  power  of  thought,  the  imma- 
terial method  of  communication  that  is  called  telepa- 
thy, continues,  and  this  can  be  utilized  and  developed. 


OUE  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!       267 

By  this  means  messages  have  been  received  across  the 
gulf,  and  the  barrier  is  opaque  no  longer.  It  never 
was  really  opaque :  there  must  have  been  far  more  per- 
sonal intercourse  than  the  world  in  general  has  been 
aware  of ;  but  now  the  facts — the  messages  which  come 
— are  being  examined  in  a  scientific  age,  and  to  any  one 
who  will  really  study  the  facts,  for  a  few  strenuous 
years,  doubt  is  no  longer,  in  my  judgment,  reasonably 
possible. 

The  evidence  requires  study.  Yes,  truly,  it  does. 
All  scientific  evidence  requires  study.  Is  the  general 
public  expected  to  examine  the  records  of  scientific 
societies  before  it  can  receive  information  at  the  hands 
of  those  who  have  worked  at  the  subject  of  which  they 
treat?  Certainly  not.  Yet  some  idea  of  the  evidence 
ought  to  be  given.  It  is  not  possible  to  convey  any  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  evidence  in  an  article,  it  needs  at 
least  a  book ;  and  a  fyook  I  will  write — indeed  am  writ- 
ing ;  but  I  have  lately  communicated  three  incidents  of 
the  most  recent  evidence  to  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  whose  business  it  is  to  criticize  these  things, 
and  in  a  forthcoming  issue  of  its  proceedings  they  will 
appear.  While  in  the  previous  volumes  of  proceedings 
will  be  found  a  large  accumulation  of  previous  evi- 
dence. 

But  I  cannot  expect  people  in  general  to  understand 
it;  I  cannot  expect  people  to  deduce  conclusions  from 
any  record.  They  can  realize  that  a  case  for  inquiry 
has  been  made  out ;  they  can  regard  the  possibility  with 
respect  and  interest ;  but  for  conviction  I  am  sure  that 
most  people  must  depend  on  some  first-hand  experi- 
ence of  their  own.  And  what  that  experience  may  be, 
what  form  it  may  take,  is  not  for  me  to  say.  Mean- 
while I  counsel  an  open  and  yet  critical  mind,  and  the 


268  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

reception  of  such  immediate  comfort  as  they  can  re- 
ceive from  the  assurance  that  I  and  a  few  other  stu- 
dents fairly  familiar  with  the  whole  of  the  evidence 
have  been  convinced. 


Those  who  prefer  to  be  guided  by  speculation  and 
hypothesis  as  to  what  is  likely  must  continue  their  atti- 
tude of  negation,  which  is  based  on  nothing  more  sub- 
stantial than  their  inability  to  comprehend  how  these 
things  can  possibly  be  true :  especially  how  mental  ac- 
tivity without  the  accustomed  organ  which  we  call  the 
brain  is  possible.  As  a  matter  of  fact  they  have  no 
real  theory  of  how  it  is  possible  with  the  brain.  We 
have  grown  accustomed  to  that  fact,  and  find  it  hard 
to  imagine  any  other  j  that  is  the  strength  of  their  posi- 
tion. 

The  connection  between  mind  and  matter  is  a  puz- 
zle. Mind  without  matter  is  not  a  whit  greater  puzzle. 
It  is  not  a  case  for  theory  but  for  examination  of  fact. 
The  facts  at  present  recognized  by  orthodox  science 
must  be  enlarged,  and  then  in  due  time  a  theory  may 
follow. 

The  theory  may  be  difficult :  it  certainly  is  far  from 
clear  at  present.  Supposititious  explanations  can  be 
suggested,  but  to  them  no  weight  can  be  attached.  We 
do  not  pretend  that  the  whole  rationale  of  the  process 
of  communication  is  clear.  That  is  what  we  are  en- 
gaged in  studying.  If  there  were  no  difficulty,  the  hu- 
man race  would  have  known  all  about  it  long  ago. 

It  is  because  of  the  difficulty  that  such  careful  rec- 
ord and  examination  of  fact  has  been  necessary.  Be- 
cause of  it  also  much  profound  scepticism  has  been 
quite  legitimate. 


OUR  DEAD  SOLDIERS  YET  LIVE!       269 

But  now  that  there  are  facts  demonstrating  per- 
sonal survival  to  be  studied,  it  is  futile  to  adduce  the 
difficulty  of  explaining  them  as  an  argument  against 
them.  If  they  will  not  fit  into  our  preconceived  the- 
ories, then  those  theories  must  sooner  or  later  be 
enlarged.  The  realm  of  science  is  not  necessarily 
limited  to  a  study  of  the  material  basis  of  existence; 
it  will  have  to  include  something  more  like  existence 
itself.  There  must  be  a  theory  not  of  earth-life  alone, 
but  of  life  itself — something  much  larger  and  fuller, 
of  which  earth-life  is  but  an  episode. 

Then  I  venture  to  anticipate  that  we  shall  find  that 
we  are  one  family  all  the  time,  that  there  is  no  real 
break  or  discontinuity  in  existence,  that  what  is  called 
"the  next  world"  is  a  condition  of  things  fully  as  real 
and  interesting  and  full-bodied  as  this  world.  That 
it  is  no  strange  land  to  which  our  friends  have  gone, 
but  a  home-country  commensurate  with  the  brightest 
of  our  reasonable  hopes. 

Meanwhile  we  must  be  satisfied  to  do  our  work  here, 
not  shirking  any  of  this  life 's  duties,  and  making  our- 
selves worthy  of  the  reunion  which  will  come  in  good 
time.  The  readiness  is  all. 

Nor  have  we  altogether  to  wait  till  the  future  for 
our  partial  communion.  Even  the  most  stricken  may 
be  enabled  to  endure  to  the  end  if  they  can  learn  from 
time  to  time  a  channel  is  open  for  their  thoughts  and 
aspirations  to  be  felt ;  still  more  if  by  patience,  in  ways 
at  present  unsuspected,  some  reasonable  foundation 
for  personal  conviction  of  reciprocal  interest  and  af- 
fection is  vouchsafed  to  them. 

Some  there  are  now  who  have  had  this  experience, 
and  have  thus  learnt  the  truth  of  the  ancient  saying 
that  LOVE  BRIDGES  THE  CHASM. 


CHAPTER  XI 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIEBS  WHO  HAVE  "DIED*' 


WE  now  come  to  those  cases  where  messages  have  ap- 
parently been  received  by  the  living  from  those  who 
have  gone  before — relatives  or  friends  of  theirs  wTho 
have  been  killed  in  the  present  world-war,  in  most  in- 
stances,— which  tend  to  show  us  that  those  whom  we 
have  been  accustomed  to  think  of  as  "dead"  are  in 
fact  yet  alive,  and  capable,  at  times,  of  communicating 
with  those  yet  in  the  body,  through  certain  instruments 
or  sensitives  known  as  psychics  or  mediums.  The  first 
case  of  this  kind  I  adduce  is,  it  seems  to  me,  very  strik- 
ing,— not  only  by  reason  of  the  fact  stated,  but  also 
because  of  the  utter  frankness  of  the  writer,  which  at 
once  disarms  criticism,  and  compels  belief. 

The  author  of  the  following  account,  who  remains 
anonymous,  is,  we  are  assured,  a  well-known  business 
man  who,  until  his  experiences,  was  sceptical  regard- 
ing the  kind  of  phenomena  here  set  forth.  The  account 
is  taken  from  the  Harbinger  of  Light  (Melbourne), 
January,  1918,  being  quoted  by  that  periodical  from 
The  London  Magazine.  The  account  reads : 

"Out  of  the  many  conflicting  prophecies  as  to  how 
the  war  will  affect  the  future,  one  stands  out  pre-emi- 
nent in  its  promise  of  fulfilment.  Without  doubt,  an 
extraordinary  and  broadcast  interest  has  been  roused 
in  things  spiritual  which  promises  far-reaching  effects. 

"We  are  no  longer  satisfied  with  dogmatic  creeds 

270 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    271 

or  cut-and-dried  phrases  reduced  for  many  to  a  mean- 
ingless jangle  of  words  by  centuries  of  reiteration. 
Only  lack  of  thought  made  them  acceptable  in  an  age  of 
materialism  which  the  war  has  brought  crashing  about 
us. 

"To  have  our  youths  cut  off  from  us  at  the  very 
beginning  of  their  manhood  seems  so  unnatural  that 
we  cannot  all  accept  it  in  stoic  silence.  The  eternal 
questions,  'Whence  come  we?  Whither  do  we  go?'  be- 
come insistent  in  their  demands  for  an  answer,  and 
it  is  to  those  who  are  seeking  this  answer  I  commend 
what  my  wife  and  I  have  to  relate.  Not  *  it  it  is  con- 
clusive in  itself,  except  as  a  first  link  in  the  chain  which 
we  ourselves  can  forge  in  our  search  towards  the  In- 
finite. 

"I  have  no  doubt  there  are  many  who,  like  myself, 
dazed  by  a  sudden  loss,  with  a  hurt  past  expressing, 
have  believed  their  ctear  ones  gone  forever  beyond  all 
recall ;  and  it  is  to  those  I  would  address  myself  in  the 
hope  of  bringing  them  the  comfort  we  have  derived 
from  our  strange  and  wonderful  experiences. 

''I  am  just  an  ordinary  man  of  business,  dealing 
with  figures  all  day;  I  have  no  scientific  training,  and 
no  professed  religion;  I  have  no  arguments  to  offer, 
no  axe  to  grind;  I  merely  give  facts,  simple  in  their 
detail,  but  which  served  to  convince  me  that  all  my 
preconceived  ideas  must  go  by  the  board. 

"In  November,  1916,  my  son  was  mortally  wounded 
while  leading  his  men  at  Beaumont-Hamel,  and  several 
days  later  died,  on  the  verge  of  his  nineteenth  birthday. 
My  wife  and  I  went  to  France,  where  in  a  military 
hospital  we  had  a  few  words  with  him  before  he  passed 
over.  He  was  an  only  child,  and  the  sentiment  between 
him  and  his  mother,  who  is  exceptionally  young,  was 


272  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

as  much  the  outcome  of  an  intimate  friendship  and 
delightful  companionship  as  it  was  due  to  her  maternal 
relation:  the  loss  to  her  is  a  threefold  one. 


Deep-rooted  Prejudice  Defeated 

"I  will  not  dwell  upon  that  last  meeting.  On  our 
return  to  England  a  friend,  anxious  to  help  my  wife 
in  her  great  grief,  sent  her  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  book, 
Raymond.  Such  was  my  prejudice  that  I  begged  her 
not  to  read  it.  However,  I  did  not  feel  justified  in  per- 
sisting in  *~"e  of  her  expressed  desire  to  do  so,  but  I 
was  emphatic  that  I  should  not  be  asked  to  be  a  party 
to  what  I  considered  absolute  folly. 

' '  She  was  so  impressed  with  what  she  read  and  the 
prospect  it  opened  out  to  her  that  she  used  every  avail- 
able argument  to  lessen  my  prejudice  and  induce  me  to 
read  it.  'Men  like  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Sir  William  Earn- 
shaw  Cooper,  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour,  Lord  Dewar,  Sir 
William  F.  Barrett,  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  Sir  Will- 
iam Crookes,  all  men  of  science  and  letters,  had,'  she 
said, '  after  years  of  research  and  consideration,  ranged 
themselves  on  the  side  of  belief.'  It  might  be  that  I, 
an  ordinary  business  man  who  had  given  no  thought 
to  the  occult  or  to  theological  matters  of  any  kind,  was 
the  one  in  error,  not  they!  These  arguments  seemed 
to  me  reasonable,  and  I  changed  my  mind  and  decided 
to  read  it. 

"  However,  I  was  in  no  way  convinced,  though  I 
thought  it  a  beautiful  theory  and  realized  my  mistake 
in  condemning  it  unread.  I  felt  it  might  be  a  consola- 
tion to  her,  so  agreed  to  help  in  any  way  possible.  She 
wrote  to  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  asking  his  advice.  He  knew 
nothing  about  us,  but  out  of  kindness  to  one  suffering 


COMMUNICATIONS  FEOM  SOLDIERS    273 

a  loss  similar  to  Ms  own,  he  introduced  us  to  a  friend 
whom  he  thought  would  be  helpful,  who  had  also  ex- 
perienced a  like  bereavement. 

"In  January  of  this  year  she  anonymously  ar- 
ranged a  sitting  for  us  with  Mr.  A.  Vout  Peters,  and 
at  our  first  attempt  to  explore  the  unknown  we  were 
told  that  our  boy  on  going  over  was  met  by  'John, 
Elizabeth,  William,  and  Edward.'  These  four  names 
only  were  given.  John  was  my  father ;  Elizabeth  my 
mother ;  William  my  brother.  My  father  has  been  dead 
about  thirty-six  years,  my  brother  William  about  thir- 
ty-five years,  and  my  mother  over  two  years.  Ed- 
ward I  could  not  place,  but,  impressed  by  the  accuracy 
of  the  first  three  names,  I  wrote  to  my  eldest  brother 
inquiring  about  a  child  who,  I  knew,  had  died  in  in- 
fancy before  I  was  born.  I  had  an  immediate  reply, 
informing  me  that  a  child  named  Edward  had  died  at 
the  age  of  twelve  weeks. 

A  Very  Personal  Test 

"Another  remarkable  instance  occurred  upon  this 
first  occasion.  The  boy  knowing  my  unbelief,  said  he 
was  anxious  to  give  me  proof  of  his  presence,  and  he 
proceeded  to  do  this  through  reference  to  a  matter 
intimately  personal  and  known  only  to  my  wife  and 
myself.  It  is  so  peculiarly  private  that  I  do  not  care 
to  add  it  to  this  statement.  Among  other  things,  he 
also  reminded  me  of  a  youthful  school  fellow  of  his  to 
whom  I  had  given  an  uncommon  nickname,  which  had 
stuck  to  this  boy  through  his  schooldays. 

"Although  my  boy's  name  was  not  Eoger,  he  had 
always  been  called  so,  except  by  his  mother,  who  had 
converted  it  into  the  pet  name  of  Poger.  The  medium 


274  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

told  us  he  was  getting  a  name  through.  It  was  E-o-. 
He  could  not  make  out  the  next  two  letters  but  the  last 
was  'r'.  I  replied,  'That  is  the  boy's  name — you  mean 
Roger.'  Instantly  the  medium  answered,  'The  boy 
says  I  am  not  to  say  "Roger — but  Poger." 

"My  curiosity,  if  nothing  more,  was  roused  by  these 
phenomena, — to  me  inexplicable.  I  felt  I  could  not 
leave  the  matter  there.  I  had  entered  into  it  purely  to 
find  consolation  for  my  wife,  but  I  realized  I  might 
find  something  more. 

"Some  weeks  later,  again  anonymously,  we  made 
an  appointment  with  another  medium,  Mrs.  Osborne 
Leonard.  As  upon  the  previous  occasion,  this  medium 
knew  nothing  of  us,  why  we  had  come,  or  concerning 
whom  we  sought  information.  The  first  thing  she  did 
was  to  give  us  an  exact  description  of  our  boy,  also  the 
name  Poger,  adding  that  Elizabeth,  John,  and  William 
were  near,  helping  him. 

"Unknown  to  me,  my  wife  had  been  concerned  at 
the  absence  of  her  own  letters  among  many  others  she 
had  found  in  the  boy's  returned  belongings,  although 
she  had  made  no  mention  of  this.  The  medium  was 
insistent  that  Roger  was  pointing  out  a  satchel  with  a 
flap  which  was  among  his  things  and  had  been  over- 
looked. 'There,'  she  said,  'his  mother  would  find  the 
writing  she  was  in  search  of. '  On  looking  in  the  place 
indicated,  the  satchel  with  the  flap,  just  as  described, 
was  found,  and  in  it  all  his  mother's  letters  and  noth- 
ing else. 

"Then  followed  a  particularly  interesting  and  con- 
vincing instance.  The  medium  stretched  forth  her 
hand,  which,  she  said,  held  something  that  looked  like 
a  coin  and  yet  did  not  seem  one,  but  she  was  very 
definite  about  its  being  bronze.  My  wife  suggested 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    275 

that  it  might  be  a  regimental  bras.s  button  which  he 
had  had  made  into  a  locket  for  her,  but  the  medium 
insisted  that  if  we  searched  things  thoroughly  we  would 
find  a  bronze  object  which  answered  to  the  description 
given.  Roger  was  anxious  it  should  be  found  and  a 
hole  made  in  it  that  his  mother  might  wear  it  as  a 
token.  We  had  no  previous  knowledge  of  his  having 
possessed  anything  of  this  nature,  no  mention  had  been 
made  of  it  in  his  letters,  but  on  returning  home  we 
found  in  a  little  stud-box  a  penny  bent  nearly  double 
by  a  bullet. 

Conviction  Follows  Investigation 

11  By  tliis  time  I  was  thoroughly  convinced  that  com- 
munication had  been  established  with  my  boy,  and  was 
most  anxious  to  pursue  it  further.  At  this  stage  a 
friend  told  us  of  a  Mrs.  Annie  Brittain,  a  medium  to 
whom  we  also  owe  some  very  convincing  proofs. 

"Upon  the  first  occasion  in  which  she  acted  as  me- 
dium I  was  told  from  my  father  and  mother  that  I 

would  be  approached  by  J (my  brother)  regarding 

a  matter  with  which  I  was  to  advise  him  to  have  noth- 
ing to  do.  My  brother  lives  in  the  North  of  England, 
and  as  I  had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  what  this  message 
might  mean,  I  got  into  touch  with  him  over  the  tele- 
phone and  asked  him  if  he  wanted  to  see  me  about 
anything.  He  answered,  'Yes,  I  was  just  going  to 
write  to  you.'  My  reply  was:  'Whatever  it  is  about 
have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  This  is  a  message  from 
our  father  and  mother. '  He  said  he  wanted  my  advice 
as  he  contemplated  contesting  my  mother's  will. 

"Both  my  parents'  names  were  given,  and  though 
my  son  appeared  in  the  Army  List  as  Leslie  Stuart 


Wilkinson,  his  name  again  came  through  as  'Poger.' 
We  were  also  told  upon  this  occasion  that  *  there  were 
two  boys  with  him — Geoff ry  and  Malcolm. '  Both  were 
cousins  who  had  passed  over  during  the  war.  One 
went  down  in  the  Defence,  the  other  was  recently  killed 
in  action. 

"It  would  take  too  long  and  perhaps  encroach  too 
much  space,  to  give  in  detail  all  our  varied  experiences ; 
suffice  it  to  say  we  had  the  minutest  description  of  peo- 
ple belonging  to  us,  and  in  some  cases  intimate  in- 
stances in  their  lives.  The  manner  of  my  mother's, 
father's,  and  brother's  deaths  were  told  me,  and  that 
two  of  these  deaths  were  due  to  accidents,  details  of 
which  were  described.  Shortly  after  the  death  of  my 
wife's  father,  which  occurred  since  Roger's,  and  is 
the  most  recent  death  in  our  family,  we  were  told  of 
his  presence  vith  the  boy,  his  name  was  given  and  a 
perfect  description  of  him. 

"In  conclusion  I  will  give  the  strangest  and  most 
wonderful  experience  of  all,  though  it  is  of  an  almost 
sacred  nature,  and  only  our  desire  to  soften  and  as- 
suage the  grief  of  others  induces  me  to  write  of  it. 
While  my  wife  was  nursing  her  father  at  Brighton  the 
boy  one  morning  stood  beside  her  in  broad  daylight. 
It  was  about  eight  o'clock.  No  theory  or  explanation 
will  make  her  accept  it  as  an  impression  or  possible 
hallucination.  She  firmly  believes  the  boy  to  have  been 
actually  present. 

"A  few  days  later  she  returned  to  town,  having  made 
no  mention  of  this  to  any  one,  and  only  told  me  as  we 
met  at  the  station.  That  same  afternoon  we  saw  Mrs. 
Brittain.  Almost  the  first  thing  she  said  was,  'The 
boy  wants  me  to  tell  his  mother  it  was  not  a  dream 
r-the  veil  was  allowed  to  be  lifted  for  one  second.  And,' 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    277 

added  Mrs.  Brittain,  'Joan  has  also  seen  him.'  Joan 
is  an  intimate  young  friend,  who  a  little  time  before 
had  told  my  wife,  to  her  astonishment,  that  she  (Joan) 
had  actually  seen  him  under  conditions  which  placed 
out  of  bounds  the  possibility  of  its  having  been  a 
dream.  Mrs.  Brittain  had  never  heard  of  and  knew 
nothing  of  Joan.  She  told  us  many  strange  things  at 
this  extraordinary  sitting.  Thus  far  no  medium  had 
given  my  wife  the  name  of  endearment  the  boy  used 
to  her,  and  she  was  transfigured  with  joy  when  this 
time  he  said,  'Good-bye,  Angel/  the  name  she  was 
most  used  to  from  him. 

"//  cmy  one  had  told  me  a  year  ago  that  I  could  read, 
much  less  write  with  credence,  the  instances  here  set 
down,  1  would  have  regarded  it  as  impossible.  I  should, 
therefore,  like  to  warn  the  sceptic  who  may  chance 
upon  this  not  to  cast  it  aside  with  a  sneer  from  what 
he  considers  a  superior  attitude.  Discard  if  you  must, 
after  careful  consideration  and  an  effort  to  understand ; 
but  great  is  the  temerity  of  the  man  who  without  care 
or  thought  flippantly  sets  aside  the  profoundest  of 
questions. 

"  Whatever  our  religion,  let  us  be  sure  that  no  one 
of  us  has  a  monopoly  of  truth.  By  searching  the  be- 
liefs of  others  we  may  find  that  which  answers  our 
greatest  need  and  completes  our  own  imperfect  con- 
ception. ' ' 

The  next  two  cases,  giving  good  evidence  of  identity, 
are  from  Sir  William  Barrett 's  book  On  the  Threshold 
of  the  Unseen.  The  author  calls  the  cases,  respectively, 
"The  Chatham  Case,"  and  "The  Pearl  Tie-Pin  Case." 


278  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

The  Chatham  Case 

"In  this  case  tliG  communicating  intelligence  was 
unknown 'to  Mrs.  E.  The  circumstances,  written  down 
at  the  time,  were  as  follows : — A  cousin  of  my  hostess, 
an  officer  in  the  Engineers,  named  B.,  was  paying  a 
visit  to  Hawthorn  Manor.  I  was  not  present,  but  the 
facts  were  sent  to  me;  some,  indeed,  came  under  my 
own  knowledge.  B.  had  a  friend,  a  brother  officer, 
Major  C.,  who  died  after  B.  left  Chatham,  and  to  whose 
rooms  in  the  barracks  he  frequently  went  to  play  on 
C.'s  piano,  both  being  musical.  Of  this  Mrs.  E.  as- 
sured me  she  knew  absolutely  nothing.  .  .  .  At 
the  sitting  in  question,  much  to  B.'s  amazement,  for 
he  was  quite  ignorant  of  Spiritualism,  the  Christian 
name  and  surname  of  Major  C.  were  unexpectedly 
given,  followed  by  the  question,  addressed  to  B.,  'Have 
you  kept  up  your  music?*  Then  came  some  private 
matter  of  a  striking  character,  when  suddenly  the  un- 
seen visitant  interjected  the  question,  'What  was  done 
with  the  books?'  'What  books,'  was  asked.  'Lent 
to  me,'  was  C.'s  reply.  'Who  lent  you  the  books?' 

The  reply  came  at  once,  'A ,'  giving  the  name  of 

another  brother  officer,  of  whose  existence  Mrs.  E.  was 

also  wholly  unaware.    '  Shall  I  write  to  ask  A if  he 

has  them?'  B.  asked.  'Yes,'  was  the  reply.  All  pres- 
ent assert  on  their  word  of  honour  they  knew  of  no  such 
loan,  nor  was  the  officer  named  in  any  of  their  thoughts, 
nor  had  Mrs.  E.  ever  heard  A.'s  name  mentioned  be- 
fore. 

"A was  written  to,  and  the  questions  about  the 

books  incidentally  asked,  but  in  a  reply  that  came  some 
time  after  no  notice  was  taken  of  the  question.  Two 
months  later,  however,  B.  accidentally  met  his  friend 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    279 

A ,  when,  in  course  of  conversation  on  other  mat- 
ters, A suddenly  exclaimed :  *  That  was  a  rum  thing 

you  asked  me  about  in  your  letter ;  I  mean  about  Major 
C.  and  the  books.  I  did  lend  him  some  books,  but  I 
don't  know  what  became  of  them  after  his  death.'  ' 

The  Pearl  Tie-Pin  Case 

"Miss  C.,  the  sitter,  had  a  cousin,  an  officer  with  our 
Army  in  France,  who  was  killed  in  battle  a  month  pre- 
viously to  the  sitting:  this  she  knew.  One  day  after 
the  name  of  her  cousin  had  unexpectedly  spelt  out  on 
the  ouija  board,  and  her  name  given  in  answer  to  her 
query  'Do  you  know  who  I  am,'  the  following  message 
came: — 

1 1  '  Tell  mother  to  give  my  pearl  tie-pin  to  the  girl  I 
was  going  to  marry,  I  think  she  ought  to  have  it.' 
When  asked  what  w4as  the  name  and  address  of  the 
lady,  both  were  given,  the  name  spelt  out  included  the 
full  Christian  and  surname,  the  latter  being  a  very 
unusual  one  and  quite  unknown  to  both  sitters.  The 
address  given  in  London  was  either  fictitious  or  taken 
down  incorrectly,  as  a  letter  sent  there  was  returned, 
and  the  whole  message  was  thought  to  be  fictitious. 

"Six  months  later,  however,  it  was  discovered  that 
the  officer  had  been  engaged,  shortly  before  he  left 
for  the  front,  to  the  very  lady  whose  name  was  given ; 
he  had  however  told  no  one.  Neither  his  cousin  nor 
any  of  his  own  family  in  Ireland  were  aware  of  the 
fact  and  had  never  seen  the  lady  nor  heard  her  name, 
until  the  War  Office  sent  over  the  deceased  officer's 
effects.  Then  they  found  that  he  had  put  this  lady's 
name  in  his  will  as  his  next  of  kin,  both  Christian  and 
surname  being  precisely  the  same  as  given  through  the 


280  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

automatist;  and  what  is  equally  remarkable,  a  pearl 
tie-pin  was  found  in  his  effects. 

"Both  the  ladies  have  signed  a  document  they  sent 
me,  affirming  the  accuracy  of  the  above  statement.  The 
message  was  recorded  at  the  time,  and  not  written  from 
memory  after  verification  had  been  obtained.  Here 
there  could  be  no  explanation  of  the  facts  by  subliminal 
memory,  or  telepathy,  or  collusion,  and  the  evidence 
points  unmistakably  to  a  telepathic  message  from  the 
deceased  officer." 

An  Apparition  Narrates  Facts 

I  next  give  an  account  of  a  seance,  published  in  the 
Journal  of  the  British  S.  P.  R.,  April,  1917.  Mrs, 
Salter,  writing  editorially,  says: 

"In  the  following  case  which  has  been  sent  us 
through  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  evidence  of  identity  was  ob- 
tained in  a  communication  purporting  to  come  from  a 
spirit.  The  communication  was  made  through  a  pro- 
fessional medium,  to  whom  reference  is  made  under 
the  name  of  Mr.  Z.  in  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  paper  on  'Re- 
cent Evidence  about  Prevision  and  Survival*  (Proc. 
S.  P.  R.,  Part  LXXIL,  pp.  Ill  ff.)» 

"The  spirit  purporting  to  communicate  was  a  son 

of  Colonel  M and  we  give  first  Colonel  M 's 

account  of  the  incident,  as  follows: 

"  'December  23,  1916. 

"  'On  5th  October,  1916,  I  was  at  supper  at  Colonel 
C-  -'s  residence  in  Tufnell  Park.  Mr.  (Z.),  who 
had  been  asked  to  give  a  private  seance,  was  one  of 
the  party  and  at  supper  was  seated  on  my  left  During 
the  meal  he  said  to  me,  "A  boy  who  looks  to  me  about 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    281 

25,  dressed  in  the  kilt,  has  just  come  in  and  is  standing 
now  behind  your  chair — to  me  he  seems  to  be  your 
son." 

"  'He  further  described  him  to  me  as  wearing  the 
Black  Watch  tartan  (this  was  an  error,  but  one  easily 
enough  made,  especially  by  a  Londoner).  My  son  was 
in  the  Argyll  &  Sutherland  Highlanders,  and  I  said  it 
would  not  be  the  boy,  who  had  been  shot  through  the 
head  near  Ypres  on  8th  November,  1914.  Mr.  (Z.) 
said, ' '  I  feel  sure  he  is  for  you — he  is  trying  to  identify 
himself  and  is  showing  me  a  large  scar,  three  or  four 
inches  long,  on  the  left  shin,  looks  to  me  as  if  it  might 
be  a  foot-ball  scar." 

"  'I  replied  that  I  had  often  seen  the  boy  in  swim- 
ming, etc.,  and  that  to  my  knowledge  he  had  no  such 
scar. 

"  '(Z.)  however,  remained  very  positive  and  said, 
'  *  Well !  I  feel  very  sure  he  is  for  you,  and  if  you  make 
enquiries  you  will  find  he  had  this  scar — he  smiles  and 
shows  it  to  me  again." 

'  *  '  Some  two  or  three  days  after,  I  met  on  the  stair- 
case of  my  house  an  old  servant  who  had  been  the  boy's 
nurse  many  years  ago,  and  I  asked  her  if  she  remem- 
bered any  such  scar. 

"  'She  said,  "Yes,  during  the  winter  of  1910-11, 
while  at  Sandhurst,  he  had  motored  in  to  London  for 
the  week-end  on  leave." 

"  'He  used  a  motor-bike  in  those  days — "The  roads 
were  still  covered  with  half-melted  snow.  The  bike 
skidded  and  threw  him.  The  front  wheel  during  the 
fall  turned  round  and  caught  his  leg  between  the  step 
•and  the  wheel  and  gave  his  shin  a  very  nasty  cut — five 
or  six  inches  long.  When  he  got  home,  about  midnight, 
he  woke  me  up  to  bandage  the  wound  before  he  turned 


282  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAK 

into  bed,  as  it  was  bleeding  badly.  Before  bandaging 
I  washed  the  wound  with  Sanitas  for  fear  of  tetanus 
infection. ' ' 

"  *I  never  saw  the  wound  and  had  no  knowledge  of 
the  scar,  and  therefore,  had  denied  its  existence  to 
Mr.  (Z.) — but  he  was  right  and  I  was  wrong. 

"  *  There  could  have  been  no  "  thought  reading"  in 
this  case,  for  the  idea  that  the  boy  had  such  a  scar  as 
described  did  not  then  exist  in  my  mind.  In  fact,  I 
"thought"  quite  differently. 

"<C.M .Li 


' '  *  Certified  that  the  above  statement  contains  an  ac- 
curate summary  of  what  took  place  on  the  occasion 
mentioned. 

«  <M.  C . 

(A.Z.)' 

"We  have  also  obtained  an  independent  statement 
from  Colonel  C as  follows : 

"  '  January  10, 1917. 

11  'I  was  present  at  the  seance  and  supper  mentioned 
by  Colonel  M—  -  and  can  certify  that  his  letter  con- 
tains an  accurate  statement  of  what  took  place. 

"  <N.  C .' 

"The  following  statement  was  obtained  from  the 
tiurse  to  whom  Colonel  M alludes  above: 

"  'January  7,  1917. 

"  'I  certify  that  I  have  read  the  above  statement, 
that  I  personally  washed  and  dressed  the  wound  re- 
ferred to,  and  informed  Col.  M of  the  fact  as 

recorded,  and  that  the  above  is  a  true  statement  of 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    283 

the  case,  and  that  I  am  the  "nurse"  therein  referred 
to.  I  was  not  present  at  the  seance  and  do  not  know 
Mr.  (Z.)  and  therefore  cannot  certify  to  that  portion 
of  the  statement. 

M  -  .' 


"After  receiving  this  statement  we  wrote  to  Colo- 
nel M  --  pointing  out  that  the  nurse  did  not  say 
which  leg  was  injured  and  asking  for  further  in- 
formation from  her  on  this  point.  In  reply  she  wrote 
to  us  as  follows: 

"  'February  16,  1917. 

"  *I  hereby  certify  the  wound  was  on  the  left  leg, 
about  half-way  between  the  ankle  and  the  knee. 


"It  appears  that  the  medium,  Mr.  Z.,  was  justified  in 
his  assertion  that  the  young  soldier  who  wished  to 
communicate  with  Colonel  M  -  —  apparently  his 
son  —  had  a  scar  on  his  left  leg.  It  came  to  our  knowl- 
edge that  upon  another  recent  occasion  a  spirit  pur- 
porting to  communicate  through  Mr.  Z.  (in  no  way  ' 
connected  with  Colonel  M  -  )  had  referred  to  a 
scar  on  his  right  leg  as  a  proof  of  identity.  In  this  case 
also  it  happened  that  the  statement  was  correct,  but  this 
second  incident  suggested  that  Mr.  Z.  might  be  in  the 
habit  of  making  allusions  to  scars  on  the  chance  of 
scoring  a  hit.  We  have,  however,  made  enquiries  of 
several  people  who  have  had  sittings  repeatedly  with 
Mr.  Z.  and  they  tell  us  that  in  their  own  experience  he 
has  not  referred  to  a  scar.  It  appears  unlikely  there- 
fore that  the  occurrence  of  two  recent  cases  in  which  a 
spirit  purporting  to  communicate  through  Mr.  Z.  has 
referred  correctly  to  a  scar  on  one  of  his  legs  is  merely 
a  coincidence. 


284  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

"Whatever  was  the  source  of  the  medium's  knowl- 
edge it  does  not  appear  to  have  been  Colonel  M 's 

mind,  as  he  himself  has  pointed  out,  and  it  is  difficult 
to  see  upon  what  normal  source  of  information  Mr.  Z. 
could  have  drawn. 

"Upon  this  point  Colonel  M informs  us  that 

until  the  evening  of  October  5,  1917,  'I  had  never  met 
or  heard  of  Mr.  Z.,  no  one  of  the  company  at  the  table 
or  in  the  house  had  acquaintance  with  my  son,  or  knew 
him  by  sight.'  " 

The  next  account  was  published  in  the  International 
Psychic  Gazette  of  London.  Writing  editorially,  Mr. 
John  Lewis,  the  editor,  says: 

In  giving  the  following  account,  furnished  to  us  by 
Count  Hamon,  of  a  remarkable  seance,  the  medium  at 
which  was  the  Eev.  Susannah  Harris,  it  should  be  men- 
tioned that  the  sitting  was  given  by  the  medium  with- 
out payment,  and  in  the  interests  of  psychic  science. 
We  know  personally  all  those  mentioned  as  having 
been  present,  and  have  seen  the  letters  referred  to  by 
Count  Hamon. 

On  Monday,  May  14,  1917,  I  attended  in  a  private 
house  a  seance  at  which  Mrs.  Harris  was  the  medium. 
There  were  present  on  this  occasion,  amongst  several 
others  whose  names  I  am  not  authorized  to  mention, 
Miss  Scatcherd,  Mrs.  Dixson-Hartland,  and  Dr.  Hec- 
tor Munro. 

After  many  convincing  conversations  with  spirits 
by  means  of  the  "direct  voice"  had  occurred,  a  spirit 
visitor  came  and  said  very  distinctly,  "I  want  to  send 
a  message  to  my  father." 

"Who  are  you?"  we  asked. 

The  spirit  replied,  "I  am  an  officer  recently  killed  aft 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    285 

the  front  in  Flanders;  my  name  is ."  We  could 

not  hear  the  name  very  distinctly,  so  after  some  re- 
peated efforts  to  get  it,  we  said,  "Well,  leave  the  name 
alone  for  the  moment  and  try  to  give  us  the  message." 

Speaking  very  slowly  at  first,  the  spirit  said,  "My 
father  lives  near  Dublin ;  you  will  find  him  at  the  well- 
known  club  there." 

A  gentleman  present  asked,  "Which  club  do  you 
mean?" 

The  spirit  replied,  "The  Kildare-street  Club;  you 
know  it  well,  and  you  also  know  my  father." 

As  no  one  had  caught  the  name  of  the  father  exactly 
right,  the  gentleman  referred  to  said,  "I  know  the 
Kildare-street  Club  very  well,  but  I  do  not  think  I 
know  your  father;  but  give  us  the  message." 

Continuing,  the  spirit  went  on,  "My  father  is  always 
worrying  and  unhappy  about  me;  he  can't  seem  to  get 
over  it.  I  want  some  one  to  tell  him  that  I  came  here 

* 

tonight  to  get  this  through  as  a  test  message  to  him, 
to  tell  him  not  to  worry  about  me  as  I  am  all  right, 
and  glad  to  have  gone  through  it,  and  I  want  him  to 
know  that  I  am  all  right  and  not  to  worry  and  be  un- 
happy any  more." 

After  a  slight  pause,  he  continued,  "My  father  also 
goes  to  mediums  in  Dublin,  and  I  try  to  give  him  mes- 
sages through  them,  but  I  want  this  sent  on  to  him 
as  a  test  message." 

We  again  asked  him  to  try  to  give  us  the  name,  and 
we  got  one  part — the  Christian  name — very  distinctly, 
but  the  surname  was  always  so  slurred  that  we  were 
unable  to  catch  it  clearly,  and  after  many  efforts  had 
to  give  it  up.  But  before  we  did  so,  I  promised  that  I 
would  do  all  I  could  to  send  on  his  message. 

The  next  morning  I  wrote  a  letter  to  the  name  I 


286  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAK 

thought  it  had  sounded  like,  addressing  it  to  the  Kil- 
dare-street  Club.  In  about  a  week  this  letter  was  re- 
turned to  me  through  the  Post  Office  marked  "Name 
not  known." 

I  was  considerably  worried  as  to  what  I  should  do 
next,  until  the  thought  came  to  me  that  I  should  write 
to  the  secretary  of  the  club  simply  saying  that  I  was 
anxious  to  find  a  gentleman  who,  I  believe,  was  a  mem- 
ber of  his  club,  whose  son  had  recently  been  killed  in 
Flanders ;  that  the  name  was  something  like  so-and-so, 
and  that  I  had  a  message  to  give  him  about  his  son. 

Now  comes  the  strangest  part  of  this  strange  story. 
In  a  few  days,  I  received  a  letter  from  the  gentleman  in 
question,  saying  that  the  secretary  had  sent  him  my 
letter,  and  adding,  "I  have  had  a  message  from  my 
son  who  was  recently  killed  in  Flanders,  saying  he  had 
sent  me  a  message  through  a  medium  in  London,  that 
he  had  difficulty  in  getting  the  name  and  address 
through  but  he  wanted  to  give  me  a  test. ' '  The  father 
added:  "If  you  understand  this  I  hope  you  will  send 
me  his  message.'*  In  another  paragraph  the  writer 
continued :  "  I  see  your  name  is  Hamon.  I  am  descend- 
ed from  a  Huguenot  family,  and  twice  they  married 
into  the  Hamon  family,  also  Huguenots;  their  name 
was  also  de  Eobillard,  Counts  of  Champagne.  It  may 
interest  you." 

Now  here  was  the  case  of  a  gentleman  who  had  not 
yet  come  into  contact  with  me  receiving  through  a  me- 
dium in  Dublin  a  message  from  his  son  in  the  spirit 
world — stating  clearly  what  had  taken  place  at  our 
seance  in  London — and  sending  his  son's  message  be- 
fore he  had  received  it  from  me.  It  was  also  strange 
that  I  should  have  been  the  person  so  strongly  im- 
pressed to  obey  the  request  made  by  the  spirit  to  try 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    287 

and  get  into  communication  with  his  father,  and  by  so 
doing  be  brought  in  contact  with  a  branch  of  my  own 
family  that  I  did  not  know  existed  in  Ireland. 

Among  the  many  remarkable  instances  I  have  met 
with  of  accurate  psychic  messages,  this  is,  I  consider, 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  and  worthy  of  being  placed 
on  record. 

Mr.  Robert  Mountsier,  in  the  January  (1918)  Book- 
man, writing  on  "Spiritualism  in  England,"  says: — 

In  the  minds  of  those  remote  from  the  war  these 
losses  tend  to  be  little  more  than  mathematical  sym- 
bols; to  those  directly  concerned  they  are  the  facts  of 
death,  from  which  it  is  impossible  to  escape.  For  in- 
stance, what  does  a  list  of  the  men  lost  on  H.M.S.  In- 
vvncible,  which  went  down  in  the  great  naval  battle 
off  Jutland,  mean  to  you?  The  list  of  a  thousand 
names  begins : 

* 

NAVY  ROLL  OF  HONOUR 

Killed 

Rear- Admiral  the  Hon.  Horace  L.  A.  Hood 
Secretary  Harold  R.  Gore  Brown 
Lieutenant  Frank  P.  O'Reilly 
Assistant  Paymaster  Lewis  R.  Tippen 

And  this  record  of  death  ends : 

Worters,  L.  G.,  London  Z.1942;  Wright,  J.,  Tyne,  Z. 
6863;  Wright,  SS.104319;  Wyatt,  A.  H.,  181053. 

To  you  this  list  of  names  may  mean  in  the  abstract 
nothing  more  than  a  company  of  brave  men  as  in- 
definite in  its  physical  make-up  as  any  gallant  crew 
mentioned  in  one  of  your  old  history  text-books.  To 
thousands  in  England  it  meant  and  still  means  tears, 


288  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

suffering,  desolation,  loneliness.  One  person  overcome 
with  grief  by  the  destruction  of  the  Invincible  is  my 
friend,  Mrs.  Stuart — to  give  her  a  name  other  than  her 
own,  which  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  use.  Her  seventeen- 
year-old  son  Edward,  an  only  child,  was  one  of  the  mid- 
shipmen lost  with  the  Invincible.  When  the  newspa- 
pers and  a  telegram  from  the  Admiralty  removed  the 
hope  that  her  son  might  have  been  saved,  she  gave  her- 
self up  to  a  consuming  grief.  Nothing  could  console 
her.  Friends  enlarged  upon  the  theme,  "He  went  to 
a  gallant  death,  dying  for  you  and  England."  The 
vicar  came  with  these  words,  "Comfort  yourself  with 
the  thought  that  his  death  is  God 's  will,  that  he  awaits 
you  in  heaven. ' ' 

Mrs.  Stuart's  reply  was  always  the  same:  "I  am  a 
mother  who  wants  her  boy  above  everything  else,  and 
what  you  say  is  to  me  nothing  but  words,  mere  words. 
If  I  only  knew  where  he  is ! '  * 

Now  Mrs.  Stuart  has  the  knowledge  she  longed  for. 
Having  gone  to  a  private  seance,  attended  by  a  small 
group  of  people,  Mrs.  Stuart  was  startled  by  hearing 
the  medium  give  a  description  that  fitted  her  son. 

"A  young  man,  a  boy,  has  a  message  for  some  one 
here.  I  see  a  uniform ;  it  is  the  blue  of  the  navy.  The 
boy  is  tall,  stands  very  straight.  Has  black  hair  and 
eyes  softly  luminous.  Nose  long  and  delicate.  His 
lips  are  thin  and  sensitive.  When  he  smiles  there  is  a 
dimple  on  his  right  cheek." 

"It's  my  boy,"  interrupted  Mrs.  Stuart,  without 
realizing  that  she  had  spoken  until  the  medium  said, 
"He  wants  to  talk  with  his  mother." 

"You  must  not  grieve  so  for  me,  mother.  Again  and 
again  I  have  come  to  you  when  you  have  been  weeping 
for  me.  But  you  haven't  been  able  to  know  that  I  was 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    289 

there.  Really,  I  am  quite  happy,  and  there  is  no  reason 
why  you  should  make  yourself  so  unhappy.  You  are 
like  so  many  others ;  you  will  not  believe  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  my  talking  to  you.  At  first  I  did  not 
know  this  myself,  but  now  I  understand." 

Up  to  this  point  in  the  seance  there  is  nothing  ex- 
traordinary, except  the  description  of  Edward  Stuart. 
Later  the  medium  solemnly  swore  to  Mrs.  Stuart  that 
before  the  spirit  of  Edward  Stuart  appeared  she  had 
never  heard  nor  read  of  either  the  mother  or  her  son. 
As  to  the  beginning  of  the  message  it  is  not  unfair  to 
assume  that  any  medium  or  any  person  who  has  studied 
the  messages  so  frequently  communicated  by  mediums 
should  be  able  to  utter  the  same  words  without  any 
connection  with  the  "other  side." 

The  voice  of  the  medium  continued : '  *  You  should  not 
think,  mother,  that  I  suffered  when  the  ship  went  down. 
You  are  always  picturing  to  yourself  my  last  hours 
as  horrible  torture.  Those  hours  are  the  most  wonder- 
ful I  ever  had  on  your  side.  When  we  were  going  down 
Weaving  came  to  me.  He  was  very  calm.  He  said: 
'You  and  I  are  going  to  leave  all  this.  Let  us  go.' 
And  we  came  over." 

Immediately  upon  returning  home  Mrs.  Stuart  went 
to  a  list  of  those  lost  on  the  Invincible.  There  was  the 
name  of  Weaving,  a  name  which  was  in  a  part  of  the 
list  she  had  never  looked  at  before  and  which  her  son 
had  never  mentioned  in  his  letters.  The  day  following 
the  seance  she  secured  from  the  Admiralty  the  address 
of  a  member  of  Weaving 's  family.  By  correspondence 
she  learned  that  Weaving,  a  man  of  education,  had 
been  interested  in  Spiritualism,  but  had  never  consulted 
a  medium.  Weaving 's  letters  to  his  family  had  con- 
tained no  references  to  Edward  Stuart  by  name. 


290  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

After  carefully  investigating  those  features  of  the 
case  that  were  susceptible  of  fraud,  Mrs.  Stuart  was 
convinced  that  she  had  been  in  communication  with  the 
spirit  of  her  departed  son.  Spiritualism  has  brought 
her  consolation. 

Mr.  Mountsier  further  says : 

Extraordinary  communications,  but  prove  that  they 
are  true,  is  the  attitude  of  the  sceptic.  Extraordinary, 
yes,  as  we  of  this  world  view  things,  but  prove  that 
they  are  not  true,  is  the  position  taken  by  the  Spirit- 
ualist. 

The  sceptic,  however,  is  no  more  able  to  disprove 

them  than  he  is  able  to  prove  that  Mrs.  H did  not 

see  the  spirit  of  her  son  upon  four  different  occasions 
at  her  home  in  Lancashire.  On  a  Wednesday  evening 
the  mother  was  sitting  alone  at  tea  when  she  heard 
the  door  open  and  saw  her  boy  enter  and  lean  against 
the  wall  just  inside.  With  an  exclamation  of  delight 
at  his  return,  she  got  up  to  greet  him,  when  to  her 
surprise  he  went  out  again  and  shut  the  door.  Think- 
ing that  he  had  gone  to  buy  cigarettes,  she  hurried  out 
to  two  shops  nearby  and  made  inquiries.  No  one  had 
seen  her  son.  She  decided  that  he  had  met  friends  and 
would  return  later,  so  she  left  the  door  open  all  eve- 
ning and  sat  up  till  eleven  o'clock  waiting  for  him. 

The  next  afternoon  while  sewing  she  happened  to 
lift  her  eyes  and  there  sitting  on  a  stool  was  her  son. 
She  approached  to  kiss  him,  but  again  he  disappeared 
without  a  word. 

Friday  evening,  after  having  tea,  she  was  standing, 
tea-pot  in  hand,  when  again  she  saw  him  appear  at 
the  door. 

"My  boy,"  she  cried,  " don't  leave  your  mother  this 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIEKiS    291 

time!    Come  in  and  sit  down  and  have  a  cup  of  tea." 

"I  can't,  mother, "  came  the  reply,  "I'm  done.  I 
want  to  go  to  bed." 

Then  she  noticed  for  the  first  time  that  there  was 
blood  on  his  breast.  "Go  up  to  your  room,  and  I  will 
come  and  wash  you  and  bring  you  a  cup  of  tea." 

She  heard  him  go  up.  Within  a  few  minutes  she  fol- 
lowed and  found  him  standing  by  the  bedside.  Sud- 
denly he  fell  on  the  bed.  He  rolled  over  on  his  back, 
and  the  mother  saw  the  bed  covered  with  blood.  With 
an  exclamation  of  dismay  she  caught  up  the  sponge  and 
turned  again  to  the  bed.  No  one  was  there,  and  the 
bed  was  spotless  and  undisturbed. 

For  the  first  time  she  realized  that  it  was  not  the  ac- 
tual physical  presence  of  her  son  that  had  been  before 
her.  The  next  day,  Saturday,  the  son  appeared  for  the 
fourth  time,  telling  her  not  to  fret,  for  everything  was 
all  right  with  him. 

The  next  morning  when  the  postman  came  to  the 
door  she  said,  "You  have  brought  me  bad  news."  A 
letter  he  gave  her  contained  the  news  of  her  son's  death 
at  the  front.  He  had  been  killed  on  the  previous 
Wednesday,  the  day  on  which  he  had  first  appeared  be- 
fore his  mother. 

What  can  the  sceptic  say  that  will  make  this  woman 
believe  she  did  not  see  her  son?  Or  how  can  the  sceptic 
prove  to  the  satisfaction  of  over  one  hundred  officers 

and  men  that  they  did  not  see  Col. on  the  day  that 

he  died  several  hundred  miles  distant  from  the  trenches 
where  they  were  stationed? 

This  is  the  story.  Col.  ,  of  one  of  England's 

famous  regiments,  was  idolized  by  the  officers  and  sol- 
diers under  him.  There  was  no  sacrifice  they  would 
not  make  for  him,  and  he  was  equally  devoted  to  their 


292  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

interests.  He  shared  their  dangers  in  Flanders  for  a 
year,  until  one  morning  he  was  wounded  by  a  hand 
grenade  which  caused  the  loss  of  his  right  arm.  When 
after  a  number  of  months  he  was  fitted  with  an  artificial 
arm  he  used  all  the  influence  possible  to  get  back  to  his 
old  regiment.  The  War  Office  was  obdurate.  He  could 
not  return  to  fighting  in  Flanders.  However,  if  he 
wished  he  could  have  the  command  of  a  garrison  bat- 
talion that  would  first  be  landed  at  Lemnos. 

He  accepted,  but  his  heart  was  with  his  old  regiment. 
They  heard  of  his  new  command,  but  all  of  them,  of- 
ficers and  men,  believed  that  the  colonel  would  succeed 
in  getting  back  to  them.  Shortly  after  landing  at  Lem- 
nos the  colonel  became  ill  with  dysentery.  He  was  put 
aboard  a  hospital  ship  which  reached  a  channel  port  on 
a  Tuesday.  At  noon  the  next  day  the  colonel  was 
placed  on  a  hospital  train,  but  he  never  reached  Lon- 
don, for  he  died  just  half  an  hour  later. 

At  the  hour  of  the  colonel's  death  a  company  of  his 
old  regiment  saw  him  in  their  trench  in  Flanders. 
The  company  sergeant-major  turned  to  the  company 
commander,  "Beg  your  pardon,  sir,  here's  Colonel 
coming  round;  didn't  know  he  was  back  again." 

The  officer  looked  up,  and  there  stood  the  colonel, 
with  his  cap  just  a  little  on  one  side  as  he  always  wore 
it  and  with  a  pair  of  binoculars,  familiar  to  all  the 
men,  slung  around  his  neck. 

The  company  commander  started  toward  him, 
dropped  his  stick  and  stooped  to  pick  it  up.  When  he 
straightened  up  again  the  colonel  was  gone.  Down  a 
communication  trench  rushed  the  officer  to  company 
headquarters.  The  officers  there  had  also  seen  the 
colonel.  "We  looked  at  him  for  fully  a  minute,  then 
suddenly  he  was  not  there.  We  can't  make  it  out, 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    293 

either,  for  we  thought  he  was  in  the  Dardanelles.  Be- 
sides all  the  men  saw  him,  and  he  had  both  his  arms." 

Not  until  the  next  week  did  the  regiment  learn  of 
the  colonel's  death.  Not  one  of  the  hundred  and  more 
men  who  had  seen  him  even  knew  until  then  that  the 
colonel  had  left  the  Mediterranean. 

No  matter  what  you  and  I  believe,  no  matter  what 
arguments  we  might  put  forward  in  attempting  to 
prove  that  the  colonel  or  his  spirit  did  not  appear,  that 
company  saw  its  former  colonel.  They  know  they 
did.  .  .  . 

General  Sir  Alfred  Turner,  who  in  more  than  twen- 
ty-five years  of  psychic  research  has  had  seances  with 
numerous  mediums  of  various  nationalities,  tells  me 
he  has  come  in  contact  with  very  few  who  are  not  gen- 
uine. Eecently  he  has  had  a  number  of  sittings  with 
three  mediums  in  whose  powers  and  integrity  he  has 
the  utmost  confidence  because  of  repeated  tests  and 
communications. 

At  one  of  these  sittings,  with  a  medium  known  as 
Mr.  Craddock,  a  distinguished  general  officer,  who  died 
in  the  Sudan  thirty-one  years  ago,  appeared  to  the 
medium  and  General  Turner,  "as  clearly  as  in  his 
physical  life,"  said  General  Turner  in  telling  the  de- 
tails. He  asked  the  spirit  what  had  happened  to  his 
son,  who  was  an  officer  in  the  Guards  and  who  had  been 
reported  "missing,  believed  killed."  The  father  re- 
plied that  his  son  is  a  prisoner  in  Germany,  and  that 
owing  to  shell-shock  his  memory  is  completely  de- 
stroyed, and  he  cannot  recall  his  name  to  give  to  his 
captors. 

When  sitting  with  X.,  a  medium  of  more  than  ordi- 
nary powers,  there  came  a  voice  calling  General  Turner 
"uncle."  He  could  not  identify  the  source  of  the  com- 


munication  until  the  spirit  gave  his  Christian  name; 
then  General  Turner  recognized  him  as  a  boy  of  nine- 
teen, an  officer  in  the  Guards,  who  although  not  a 
nephew  had  always  addressed  him  as  uncle.  General 
Turner  knew  that  the  boy  had  been  brutally  murdered 
by  a  German  officer.  The  battalion  of  the  Guards  to 
which  the  boy  belonged  was  being  pressed  back  by  the 
Germans  in  greatly  superior  numbers  when  he  was 
wounded  by  a  piece  of  shrapnel.  His  comrades,  un- 
able to  carry  him,  saw  him  shot  by  a  German  officer. 
Later  this  German  was  captured,  identified,  tried  by 
court-martial  and  shot. 

At  this  seance  the  boy  told  General  Turner  that  he 
was  perfectly  happy  and  had  no  wish  to  return  to 
earth.  He  said  that  since  his  spirit  had  left  his  body 
he  had  been  helped  by  other  spirits. 

At  a  subsequent  seance  General  Turner  was  in  com- 
munication with  the  boy  a  second  time,  but  with  a 
different  medium,  Mrs.  Susannah  Harris.  Through 
one  of  her  control  spirits,  called  Harmony,  General 
Turner  addressed  a  question  to  this  nineteen-year-old 
officer  of  the  Guards  relating  to  the  fellow-officer  "re- 
ported missing,  believed  killed*'  and  said  by  the  spirit 
of  the  father  to  be  a  prisoner  in  Germany. 

' '  Is  Captain  -    -  with  you  I ' ' 

"No,"  came  the  reply,  "he  is  still  on  your  side. 
He  was  made  a  prisoner.  The  people  around  him  can- 
not learn  who  he  is.  He  is  suffering  from  shell-shock, 
and  he  knows  nothing  about  the  past." 

"Does  he  know  his  name!" 

"No,  he  has  forgotten  everything." 

As  yet  no  information  has  been  received  from  Ger- 
many verifying  these  corroborative  communications 
from  different  spirits  through  different  mediums.  But 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    295' 

the  Spiritualist  is  just  as  firm  in  his  belief  of  the  truth 
of  these  communications  as  the  Christian,  who  does 
not  demand  material  proof  of  his  religious  beliefs. 

During  the  same  seance  with  Mrs.  Harris,  General 
Turner  was  in  communication  with  Lord  Roberts,  who 
died  on  November  14,  1914,  after  the  English  people 
and  government  had  realized  their  mistake  in  not  fol- 
lowing his  advice  in  regard  to  preparations  to  offset 
Germany's  military  strength.  This  was  uppermost  in 
General  Turner's  mind,  and  he  addressed  a  question 
concerning  it  to  Lord  Roberts:  "Do  you  feel  that  the 
refusal  of  the  government  to  listen  to  your  warnings 
will  have  a  disastrous  effect  on  the  outcome  of  the 
war?" 

"I  am  convinced  England  will  be  victorious, "  re- 
plied Lord  Roberts.  "If  the  government  had  only  met 
Germany's  activities  with  the  proper  military  prep- 
arations everything  on  your  side  would  be  very  dif- 
ferent from  what  it  is  today.  Everything  will  be  well 
in  the  end." 

Miss  Estelle  Stead,  in  a  recent  contribution  to  the 
English  Review  of  Reviews,  says : 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  results  of  the  war  has 
been  the  development  of  what,  for  want  of  a  better 
expression,  I  will  call  telegraphic  communications, 
while  postal  service  has  been  practically  held  up.  Short 
messages  from  the  "dead"  telling  of  arrival,  giving 
assurance  that  the  transmitter  is  happy,  and  tests  of 
identity  are  being  received  daily.  But  my  experience 
and  the  experience  of  others  who  have  studied  the  com- 
munications received  since  the  outbreak  of  the  war  is 
that  long  and  concise  messages  are  of  very  rare  oc- 
currence today. 


296  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

The  causes  for  this  may  be  summed  up  as  follows : 

1.  The  numbers  passing  over. 

2.  The  conditions  around  the  earth  plane. 

3.  The  mental  condition  of  receivers  here. 

Many  of  those  who  have  studied  communication  on 
the  other  side — and  it  is  by  no  means  all  who  have- 
are  using  the  knowledge  they  had  gained,  and  which 
they  were  using,  before  the  war,  to  transmit  longer 
messages  for  themselves,  and  to  help  the  newly-arrived 
to  get  into  touch.  It  appears  to  need  all  their  knowl- 
edge and  strength  to  get  just  a  few  words  of  assurance 
and  comfort  through,  and  when  once  the  telegraphic 
message  of  hope  and  comfort  has  been  communicated, 
little  more  seems  able  to  be  achieved,  save  a  repetition 
of  that  message  or  of  similar  short  messages  of  iden- 
tification and  comfort. 

Until  the  newly-arrived  has  studied  the  subtleties 
and  difficulties  of  communication  for  himself  and 
learned  how  to  manipulate  and  overcome  them,  he  will 
not  be  able  to  transmit  anything  in  the  way  of  a  letter 
or  a  longer  message.  Even  then,  having  learned  how 
to  communicate  himself — and  this  is  a  fact  which  many 
on  this  side  who  have  received  these  short  telegraphic 
messages  and  tests  of  identity,  seemingly  easily,  find 
difficult  to  realize  and  grasp — much  depends  on  the 
conditions  here  as  to  whether,  once  transmitted,  the 
messages  will  ever  be  received,  will  not  be  so  much 
altered  and  distorted  as  to  be  almost  unrecognizable 
as  coming  from  the  loved  son,  father  or  husband  from 
whom  they  long  to  hear. 

The  conditions  around  the  earth  plane  at  present  are 
terrible.  The  war  is  setting  up  so  many  clouds  in  the 
mental  atmosphere  that,  according  to  messages  re- 
ceived from  those  on  the  other  side,  a  thick  black  dark- 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    297 

ness  envelops  the  earth  as  a  fog.  This  has  to  be  pene- 
trated by  those  wishing  to  send  messages.  These  are 
guided  in  their  efforts  by  the  lights  which  we  send 
out  here.  For  each  individual  one  of  us  here  emanates 
light,  the  force  and  strength  of  which  is  regulated  by 
our  spiritual  development  and  the  strength  of  the  love- 
power  within  us.  Where  there  is  a  great  love,  the  light 
is  strong  and  attracts  the  loved  ones.  Where  there  is 
spiritual  development  the  light  is  also  strong  and  at- 
tracts many,  and  often  those  on  the  other  side  who  are 
unable  to  get  in  touch  with  their  own  people  will  be 
able  to  communicate.  But  when  there  is  spiritual 
development  and  a  strong  bond  of  love  powerful  in  its 
unselfishness,  then,  given  the  right  psychic  conditions, 
there  will  be  the  clearest  and  purest  of  communica- 
tions. 

These  elements  seem  to  be  essential  if  good  com- 
munications are  to  be  obtained.  As  my  father  says  in 
his  message,  "Commune  with  us  for  love  of  commu- 
nion, and  all  other  things  that  love  can  dictate  and  cir- 
cumstances will  permit  shall  be  added  thereto. ' '  Again 
and  again  I  have  proved,  by  only  too  bitter  experience, 
that  if  one  seeks  for  a  message  along  any  particular 
line  or  with  regard  to  any  particular  subject,  one  is 
foredoomed  to  failure;  that  love  and  prayer  and  pa- 
tience are  needed  to  bring  about  right  conditions,  and 
that  often  when  we  least  expect  it  and  are  not  looking 
for  it,  the  message  which  is  helpful  comes  and  the  ad- 
vice which  we  need  is  given. 

As  these  boys  and  men  learn  how  to  establish  com- 
munication for  themselves  they  in  their  turn  help  the 
more  newly  arrived  to  come  into  touch  with  their  loved 
ones  even  as  they  themselves  have  done.  Raymond 
Lodge,  who  came  so  quickly  into  touch  with  his  own 


298  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

people  after  passing  over,  owing  to  the  fact  that  they 
understood  the  necessity  of  giving  certain  conditions, 
has  stated,  and  others  whom  I  know  personally  on  the 
Other  Side  have  also  told  me,  that  this  is  their  spe- 
cial work.  .  .  . 

Another  boy  was  able  to  establish  his  identity  and 
give  proof  of  his  continued  existence  by  giving  a  mes- 
sage to  a  medium  in  New  Zealand  for  his  mother  in 
England.  This  is  the  account  sent  me  by  my  friend, 
Mr.  Trolove,  of  Wellington,  New  Zealand : — 

"Four  months  or  five  months  after  the  war  started 
a  medium  at  the  circle  in  Wellington,  of  which  I  am 
a  member,  was  controlled  by  some  distressed  soul 
who  wanted  his  mother.  He  gave  his  name  and  said 
his  age  was  twenty-three,  and  that  he  had  died  in  a 
hospital  from  wounds  at  Compiegne.  He  begged  us 
to  write  and  tell  his  mother,  and  gave  her  name  and 
address  in  England.  Would  we  write  and  tell  her  he 
was  happy,  and  that  all  was  well  with  him?  I  wrote, 
and  got  a  reply  by  return  mail,  acknowledging  the 
facts,  and  thanking  me  for  the  message. 

I  have  in  my  possession  from  the  boy's  mother,  the 
letter  confirming  Mr.  Trolove 's  statement. 

At  the  W.  T.  Stead  Bureau  we  have  seen  many  re- 
unions. This  bureau  was  opened  a  few  weeks  before 
the  war,  at  the  instigation  of  those  on  the  other  side, 
in  order  that,  we  now  realize,  it  might  be  ready  to 
help  those  who  would  be  cast  into  mourning  and  despair 
through  the  war.  The  aims  of  the  W.  T.  Stead  Bu- 
reau are  the  same  as  those  of  Julia's  Bureau,  founded 
by  my  father  in  1909,  and  closed  after  his  passing  in 
1912,  and  which  he  set  forth  as  follows : — 

"It  is  not  established  to  solve  scientific  problems 
nor  for  the  purpose  of  physical  research.  Its  one  and 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    299 

only  object  is  to  help  those  who  mourn  to  communicate 
with  their  loved  ones  who  have  passed  on  to  another 
world ;  to  heal  broken  hearts,  to  comfort  Rachel  mourn- 
ing for  her  children,  to  bring  sure  and  certain  knowl- 
edge of  immortality  to  light  by  restoring  communica- 
tion between  death-divided  friends  and  relatives." 

Here  at  our  weekly  meetings  many  a  boy  on  the 
other  side  has  just  the  opportunity  to  find  the  condi- 
tions for  which  he  has  been  longing  to  make  his  pres- 
ence known  to  those  mourning  him  here.  It  may  not 
be  that  the  actual  person  with  whom  he  especially 
wishes  to  come  in  touch  is  present ;  it  may  be  a  friend, 
it  may  be  a  distant  relation.  The  boys  will  insist  on 
being  described  again  and  again,  and  bring  relatives 
and  friends  who  have  passed  over  to  be  described  also, 
u/ntil  they  have  been  recognized  and  have  obtained  a 
promise  that  a  message  will  be  conveyed,  if  possible, 
in  order  to  bring  about  conditions  so  that  they  may  be 
able  to  give  direct  evidence  to  their  dear  ones. 

Up  to  the  present  I  have  spoken  of  those  who  have 
been  able  to  establish  their  identity  and  come  into  touch 
with  their  loved  ones  on  this  side.  These  are  the  for- 
tunate ones,  but  there  are  hundreds  who  are  not  able  to 
bring  about  the  right  conditions.  Many  have  to  watch 
their  dear  ones,  mourning  them  as  dead,  and  are  able 
to  give  no  sign.  But  not  only  for  this  reason  is  it  so 
very  essential  that  those  who  have  realized  this  truth 
and  who  have  had  it  demonstrated  to  them  by  their 
friends  on  the  other  side  should  make  it  known  when- 
ever opportunity  occurs,  but  because  it  makes  so  much 
difference  to  those  who  are  passing  on  if  they  know 
something  of  it.  Many  in  passing  to  the  Spirit  World 
do  not  realize  where  they  are,  or  what  has  happened. 
The  only  heaven  they  know  about — if  they  know  about 


300  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

it  at  all — is  the  one  they  have  been  taught  about  as  chil- 
dren, and  they  are  not  able  to  grasp  the  fact  that  they 
have  cast  off  their  mortal  bodies.  They  are  as  in  a 
dream,  not  knowing  where  they  are,  trying  to  fight  on 
and  not  understanding  why  their  comrades  do  not 
notice  them,  and  are  unable  to  realize  what  it  all  means. 

We  are  often  told  by  those  on  the  other  side  that 
loving  thoughts  cmd  prayers  sent  out  from  this  side 
are  of  enormous  help,  in  that  they  concentrate  power 
which  enables  the  bands  of  spirit  people  working  in 
the  battle-fields  to  break  down  this  condition  and  bring 
realization  of  the  truth  of  life  after  death  to  those  who 
pass  over  in  ignorance.  It  is  only  when  they  them- 
selves desire  to  learn  that  they  progress,  and  it  is  in 
creating  this  desire  that  our  loving  thoughts  and  pray- 
ers are  helpful,  and  that  the  ministering  spirits  are 
able  to  come  to  them  and  to  teach  them  the  laws  of  the 
Spirit  World.  As  they  learn  and  progress  their  spirit 
body  becomes  finer  and  finer,  and  they  are  able  to 
realize  more  and  more  fully  the  glory  and  beauty  of 
the  Spirit  World,  about  which  they  can  tell  us  so  little. 
For  to  understand  we  must  be  able  to  compare,  as  my 
brother  wrote  when  my  father  expressed  his  disap- 
pointment that  he  could  tell  bun  so  little  of  the  life 
he  was  living: — 

"When  I  think  of  the  ideas  I  had  of  the  life  I  am 
now  Living,  when  I  was  in  the  world  in  which  you 
are,  I  marvel  at  the  hopeless  inadequacy  of  my  dreams. 
The  reality  is  so  much,  so  very  much  greater,  than 
ever  I  imagined.  You  and  I  and  all  the  people  that 
on  earth  do  dwell  are  too  apt  to  imagine  this  life  as 
only  an  extension  of  the  old  life.  Everything  is  to 
be  as  it  is,  only  more  so.  But  everything  is  not  as  it 
was.  It  is  a  new  life,  the  nature  of  which  you  cannot 


understand,  although  it  is  possible  to  explain  some- 
thing of  it  by  analogy.  Imagine  yourself  a  caterpillar 
on  a  cabbage  leaf.  'Things  will  be  better  on  before 
you,'  you  say  to  the  caterpillar.  But  what  does  'bet- 
ter' mean  to  the  caterpillar?  More  cabbages,  ever  more 
cabbages,  and  ever  cabbages ;  more  sunshine,  less  rain, 
and  no  hungry  birds  to  eat  you  up.  All  caterpillary 
ideas  limited  by  the  sensations  and  aspirations  of  a 
cabbage  world.  After  a  time  the  caterpillar  becomes 
a  butterfly.  But  how  can  the  butterfly  explain  to  the 
caterpillars  the  condition  of  his  new  life,  the  buoyancy 
of  flight,  the  joy  of  love,  the  sweetness  of  the  honey- 
flowers  I  These  essentials  of  the  new  existence  are  in- 
capable of  being  explained  to  the  caterpillar  mind,  for 
the  vocabulary  of  the  cabbage  would  contain  no  words 
capable  of  conveying  concepts  entirely  alien  to  the 
caterpillar's  senses.  So  it  is  with  me.  I  tell  you  it  is 
better  on  before  you,  always,  and  far  better  than  I  ever 
dreamed  of.  But  when  I  come  down  to  tell  you  where- 
in the  betterness  consists  I  feel  like  the  butterfly  sitting 
by  the  caterpillar  endeavouring  to  explain  what  sight 
is,  what  light  is,  what  flight  is,  wherein  lies  the  joy  of 
love." 

Often  people  will  say  to  me,  "You  seem  to  be  so  in 
touch  with  your  father;  can't  he  tell  you  something 
definite  about  the  war?"  He  has  told  me  many  in- 
teresting things  in  connection  with  the  war,  but  from 
what  he  says,  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  see  very  far 
ahead.  He  foretold  the  great  change  in  Eussia  some 
while  before  it  happened.  He  has  once  or  twice  spoken 
of  the  work  being  done  on  their  side  in  connection  with 
the  eventual  settlement,  but  says  he  is  too  much  in 
the  war  conditions  to  be  above  and  to  see  exactly  when 
the  end  will  be.  He  often  speaks  of  the  great  difficulty 


302  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

of  getting  sufficiently  "into  tune,"  because  of  the 
present  conditions  around  the  earth-plane,  to  talk  on 
the  war,  or  even  general  matters  at  any  length.  But 
he  can  see  the  light  of  Peace  growing  clearer  and  near- 
er, and  gives  this  message  of  hope  for  the  future : 

"The  earth  is  now  covered  with  black  clouds,  and  is 
a  place  of  weariness  and  sadness,  but  the  time  is  com- 
ing when  it  will  be  an  earth  of  joy  and  gladness.  We 
see  sweet  peace.  More  light,  more  light  will  come  till 
the  two  worlds  blend  into  one." 

'A  "Ouija"  Communication 

The  following  curious  case  is  from  Azoth  (New 
York),  and  gives  an  account  of  what  purports  to  be  a 
conversation  with  a  soldier  who  had  been  killed  by  a 
bayonet  wound,  and  was  obtained  through  the  Ouija 
Board.  Mr.  Michael  Whitty,  the  editor  of  Azoth,  was 
present  at  the  time,  and  in  fact,  it  was  he  who  con- 
ducted the  experiment  of  removing  the  fancied  bayo- 
net. The  account  nicely  illustrates,  it  seems  to  me,  the 
earthly  and  bewildered  state  of  mind  which  many 
spirits  find  themselves  in,  for  some  time,  after  they 
pass  on  to  the  other  side.  This  is,  of  course,  more  the 
case  with  some  than  with  others.  In  the  present  in- 
stance, it  seems  to  have  been  very  marked. 

A  Talk  With  a  Dead  Soldier 

On  the  evening  of  New  Year's  Day,  1916,  the  writer 
and  three  friends  were  trying  what  results  they  could 
get  with  a  Ouija  Board.    For  those  who  do  not  know— 
a  Ouija  Board  is  generally  considered  a  kind  of  toy 
or  game,  and  consists  of  a  board  about  20x15  inches 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    303 

bearing  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  and  the  numerals 
1-10  printed  thereon,  a  "NO"  and  "YES"  in  the  two 
upper  corners  and  a  little  wooden  triangle  with  three 
legs  which  slides  freely  and  easily  over  the  board 's 
smooth  surface.  The  way  it  is  used — generally  two 
persons  each  place  the  fingers  of  one  hand  lightly 
on  the  triangle,  when  it  will  begin  to  move,  and  often 
spell  out  words  and  messages. 

On  this  particular  evening  M,  which  stands  for  the 
writer,  and  G  were  trying  Ouija  and  obtaining  some 
rather  disconnected  words  and  phrases,  when  J  came 
in;  M  and  J  then  sat  down  to  the  board  and  G  took 
pad  and  pencil  and  recorded  the  letters  as  the  triangle 
moved  around  and  pointed  to  them.  After  a  moment 
or  two  we  began  to  get  as  follows : 

whenveryyoun  g — b  ayayonet  still  in  me 
— There  seemed  to  be^a  good  deal  of  hesitation  about 
finding  the  letters,  but  with  the  exception  of  the  repeti- 
tion of  the  ay  in  bayonet  it  came  clearly. 

M  asked — ' '  What  is  your  name  I '  '  The  answer  came 
slowly  and  hesitatingly  Areest  artees. 

Then  the  conversation  went  on  as  follows : 

Nobana  jsoldierrsareesstillhereb  ay- 
one  t  s  t  illinme 

M.  "Is  your  name  Rees?" 

0.  (0  meaning  Ouija.)    Yes 

M.  "What  is  your  first  name?" 

0.  Albert 

M.  "Where  were  you  fighting?" 

0.  Imustnotell 

M.  "Why  not?  If  you  have  been  killed  it  does  not 
matter  now." 

0.  Iwillnottell 


304  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

M.  "Why  will  you  not?" 

0.  yesbossordersnotto 
M.  "Are  you  English 7" 

0.  No 
M.  "Are  you  French?" 

0.  no 
M.  "Are  you  Italian  or  Russian?" 

0.  NoCanadian 
M.  "Oh,  a  Canadian,  eh?" 

0.  Ithurts 

M.  "You  are  deluding  yourself.  If  you  are  dead 
you  are  in  a  new  body — the  bayonet  may  be  sticking 
in  the  old  body  but  it  is  not  really  sticking  in  you  now. " 

0.  justtryabityourself 
M.  "Do  you  know  any  of  us  here?" 

0.  I  was  the  husband  of  cook  for  mrs 
Weston 
M.  1 1  What  was  her  name  ? ' ' 

0.  Alice 
M.  "Where  did  she  live?" 

0.  In  hern  bay  (Probably  meaning  Herne  Bay, 
near  London) 

J.  "Who  is  Mrs.  Weston?" 

0.  Apal  ofyourstepm a — 

J.  "Mine?" 

0.  your  sstepmo t — N o — a  m a 

J.  "My  stepma?" 

0.  Yes 
M.  "What  are  you  doing  round  here?" 

0.  Iseemtohangoutwitherlehelives 
ianinmerw  (evidently  mixed  up) 
M.  "Whom  did  you  say  you  are  with?" 

0.  Mypalsearlthatsisname 
M.  "Is  there  no  one  else  here?" 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    305 

0.  onlysearlhere 

M.  "Well,  what  do  you  want  us  to  do  for  you?" 

0.  takethisbayonetout 

M.  "Can't  Searl  take  it  out  for  you?" 

0.  heaintgotnohands 

M.  "How  did  you  get  it?" 

0.  gotitforxmas 

M.  "Will  you  do  exactly  what  I  say?  If  you  will  I 
can  help  you." 

0.  No 

M.  "Well,  I  can't  help  you  unless  you  do  what  I  tell 
you " 

0.  Igot  (t)  hisforlowingwhatonedam 
fool  said 

G.  "Is  he  writing  sense?" 

0.  cantyouread 

M.  "Will  you  do  what  I  tell  you?  If  you  will  I  can 
help  you " 

0.  Are  you  s  u  r*e  you  can  whats  it 

M.  "Will  you  do  it?" 

0.  If  i  can 

M  then  told  him  to  wish  himself  back  where  his  body 
was  and  find  it,  and  then  he  would  see  the  bayonet  in  it 
and  realize  that  it  was  not  really  in  him  now. 

0.  if  I  go  back  now  ill  get  in  a  scrap 
with  abhlpoody  o  germ  an 

M.  "The  dead  don't  fight  with  each  other." 

0.  they  still    scrap 

M.  "Where  is  your  mother?" 

0.  she  did  not  go  to  war 

M.  "I  don't  suppose  she  did,  but  where  is  she?" 

0.  been  dead  years 

M.  "Well,  you  think  of  her  and  call  her  and  she  will 
come  to  you." 


306  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

0.  nothing  doing 

M.  "Well,  I  will  pull  it  out  for  you.  Place  yourself 
so  that  the  head  of  the  bayonet  is  in  my  hand  here 
(holding  out  hand) — Is  it  there?" 

0.  yesgoeasygoeasy 

M.  "All  right — it  won't  hurt  (suddenly  pulling  as 
if  removing  the  bayonet).  There — it's  out  now.  I've 
got  it" — (a  pause). 

0.  its  oknow 

M.  "Does  it  still  hurt?" 

0.  thats  all  right  pleas  cun  ouo  for 
m  e 

M.  "Now,  what  about  Searl?  Perhaps  I  can  fix  up 
his  hands " 

0.  heissleaping 

M.  "Well,  goodnight " 

0.  thanks 

******* 

This  is  actually  and  exactly  what  passed.  Whether 
it  really  was  a  Canadian  soldier  killed  last  Christmas 
and  who  imagined  the  bayonet  was  still  sticking  in  him 
and  giving  him  great  pain  or  not — I  leave  others  to 
judge  for  themselves. 

Raymond 

Every  one  interested  in  psychical  literature  has 
doubtless  read  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  book  Raymond.  It 
is,  indeed,  so  well-known  that  it  might  almost  seem 
superfluous  to  quote  any  passages  from  it.  Neverthe- 
less, inasmuch  as  no  book  dealing  with  the  war  and 
psychic  phenomena  would  be  complete  without  some 
extended  mention  of  this  work,  I  will  quote,  here,  a 
few  extracts  from  the  most  important  passages  of 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  book,  written  to  show  that  Ray- 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    307 

mond  Lodge,  his  son,  who  was  killed  September  14, 
1915,  actually  communicated  with  him  through  various 
mediums ;  and^for  this  purpose  I  extract  passages  from 
the  famous  "Faunus"  Message,  and  from  the  narrated 
incident  of  the  "Group  Photograph. "  Writing  of  the 
first  intimations  he  received  that  something  was  about 
to  happen,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says : 

The  Faunus  Message 

Messages  of  an  intelligible  though  rather  recon- 
dite character  began  to  reach  me  indeed  a  week  or  two 
before  the  death  of  my  son.  The  first  intimation  that 
I  had  that  anything  might  be  going  wrong,  was  a  mes- 
sage from  Myers  (Frederic  "W.  H.,  the  great  re- 
searcher, poet,  author,  some  years  deceased),  through 
Mrs.  Piper  in  America;  communicated  apparently  by 
Richard  Hodgson  at  a  time  when  a  Miss  Robbins  was 
having  a  sitting  at  Mrs.  Piper's  house,  Greenfield, 
N.  H.,  August  8,  1915,  and  sent  to  me  by  Miss  Alta 
Piper,  together  with  the  original  script.  Here  fol- 
lows the  extract  which  began  abruptly  thus : — 

R.  H.  * '  Now,  Lodge,  while  we  are  not  here  as  of  old, 
i.  e.,  not  quite,  we  are  here  enough  to  give  and  take 
messages. 

"Myers  says  you  take  the  part  of  the  poet,  and  he 
will  act  as  Faunus.  *' 

Miss  R.  "Faunus!" 

R.  H.  "  Yes,  Myers.  Protect.  He  will  understand. ' ' 
(Evidently  referring  to  Lodge). 

"What  have  you  to  say,  Lodge?  Good  work.  Ask 
Verrall,  she  will  also  understand.  Arthur  says  so" 
(this  means  Arthur  W.  Verrall,  deceased. — 0.  J.  L.). 

Miss  R.  *  *  Did  you  mean  Arthur  Tennyson ! ' ' 


B.  H.  "No;  Myers  knows.  .  .  .  Myers  is  straight 
about  Poet  and  Faunus." 

To  non-classical  people  this  means  nothing.  It  meant 
nothing  very  definite  at  that  time  to  Lodge,  except 
that  there  was,  indeed,  a  meaning  and  that  a  scholar 
like  Mrs.  Verrall  would  be  able  to  interpret  it. 

It  will  be  remembered,  however,  that  in  his  former 
frequent  communications  to  Lodge  and  his  other  fellow 
researchers  that  Myers,  poet  and  classical  scholar  as 
he  was,  had  dealt  in  these  recondite  allusions  to  poetry 
which  would  mean  nothing  to  the  ordinary  man  but 
so  much  to  the  scholar. 

In  these  communications  formerly  given  in  parts, 
of  classical  references  through  mediums  far  distant 
from  each  other  and  simultaneously,  the  piecing  to- 
gether of  which  made  an  intelligible  whole,  Myers  had 
delighted  in  showing  his  old  fondness  for  the  poets 
and  forging  a  chain  of  evidence  which  to  the  logical 
mind  seemed  well-nigh  irresistible.  These  are  tech- 
nically called  "Cross  Correspondences." 

Sir  Oliver,  therefore,  wrote  Mrs.  Verrall:  "Does  the 
Poet  and  Faunus  mean  anything  to  you?  Did  one  pro- 
tect the  other?" 

She  replied  at  once  (Sept.  8,  1915)  referring  him 
to  Horace,  Carni.  II,  XVII,  27-30,  and  saying : — 

"The  reference  is  to  Horace's  account  of  his  nar- 
row escape  from  death,  from  a  falling  tree,  which  he 
ascribes  to  the  intervention  of  Faunus." 

"I  perceived,  therefore,"  says  Sir  Oliver,  "that 
some  blow  was  going  to  fall,  or  was  likely  to  fall,  .  .  . 
and  that  Myers  would  intervene,  apparently  to  protect 
me  from  it." 

This  "Faunus  Message"  reached  Sir  Oliver  at  the 
beginning  of  September,  while  he  was  in  Scotland,  and 


COMMUNICATIONS  FEOM  SOLDIERS    309 

Raymond  was  killed  near  Ypres  on  the  14th  of  Sep- 
tember, 1915. 

The  Sequel 

What  steps  did  Myers  take  to  lighten  the  blow — for 
"lighten"  is  the  true  meaning  of  "levasset,"  not  to 
ward  off  entirely,  but  to  "lessen"? 

To  prove  Myers '  fulfilment  of  his  promised  aid, 
Sir  Oliver  quotes  the  record  of  sittings  with  mediums 
in  England  previously  unknown  and  by  sitters  who 
gave  no  sort  of  clue  to  their  identity.  Members  of 
his  family  went  anonymously  to  sittings  arranged  for 
by  a  friend  in  London. 

The  family  heard  of  Raymond's  death  on  the  17th 
of  September,  and  on  the  25th  Lady  Lodge  was  having 
an  anonymous  sitting  for  a  friend  with  Mrs.  Leonard, 
then  a  complete  stranger,  and  had  the  following 
spelled-out  for  her  by  tilts  of  the  table,  as  purporting 
to  come  from  Raymond: — 

"Tell  father  I  have  met  some  friends  of  his." 

Lady  Lodge :  * '  Can  you  give  me  any  name  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  Myers!" 

On  the  27th,  Sir  Oliver  went  to  London  and  had  his 
first  sitting  with  Mrs.  Leonard.  He  went  as  a  stranger 
—the  appointment  being  made  for  him  by  a  friend.  The 
medium  was  entranced  and  the  guide  "Feda"  de- 
scribed a  youth  in  terms  which  suggested  Raymond. 

Feda:  "He  finds  it  difficult,  he  says;  but  he  has  got 
so  many  kind  friends  assisting  him.  He  did  not  think 
when  he  waked  up  that  he  was  going  to  be  happy — but 
now  he  is  and  is  going  to  be  happier.  .  .  .  He  has  great 
work  to  do  and  wonders  if  he  will  be  able  to  do  it. 
He  says,  'I  have  many  instructors  and  teachers  with 
me.  ...  I  have  met  many  who  tell  me  that,  a  little 


310  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

later,  they  will  explain  why  they  are  helping  me.  .  .  . 
I  feel  I  have  got  two  fathers  now.  I  have  not  lost  one 
and  got  another.  I  have  got  both.  I  have  got  my  old 
one  and  a  pro  tern  father.* 

The  most  direct  allusion,  however,  to  the  "Faunusn 
message  came  at  the  close  after  Raymond  had  gone 
and  before  Mrs.  Leonard  came  out  of  trance : — 

(The  little  guide  speaks  of  herself  in  the  third  per- 
son.) 

"He  is  gone  but  Feda  sees  something  which  is  only 
symbolic ;  she  sees  a  cross  falling  back  on  to  you ;  very 
dark,  falling  on  to  you;  dark  and  heavy  -looking ;  and 
as  it  falls  it  gets  twisted  round  and  the  other  side  seems 
all  light,  and  the  light  is  shining  all  over  you.  Yes, 
that  is  what  Feda  sees.  The  cross  looked  dark,  and 
then  it  suddenly  twisted  round  and  became  a  beautiful 
light.  The  cross  is  a  meaning  of  shedding  real  light. 
It  is  going  to  help  a  great  deal." 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  Lady  Lodge  had 
her  first  sitting,  as  a  complete  stranger,  with  Mr. 
A.  Vaut  Peters,  who  had  been  invited  for  the  purpose 
— without  any  name  being  given — to  Mrs.  Kennedy's 
house  at  3.30  p.m. 

Here  again,  Raymond  was  described  early  in  the 
sitting  and  several  identifying  messages  given.  "Moon- 
stone,'* Peter's  chief  control,  voiced  the  message  as 
follows : — 

"Was  he  not  associated  with  chemistry?  If  not. 
some  one  associated  with  him  was,  because  I  see  all 
the  things  in  a  chemical  laboratory.  That  chemistry 
takes  me  away  from  him  to  a  man  in  the  flesh  (0.  J.  L., 
presumably) ;  and  connected  with  him,  a  man,  a  writer 
of  poetry,  on  our  side,  closely  connected  with  Spiritual- 
ism. He  was  very  clever — he,  too,  passed  away  out 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    311 

of  England.  (This  was  clearly  meant  for  Myers  who 
died  in  Rome.)  He  has  communicated  several  times. 
I  see  the  letter  M—  -  he  is  helping  your  son  to  com- 
municate. (His  presence  and  help  were  also  independ- 
ently mentioned  by  Mrs.  Leonard.)  He  is  built-up  in 
the  chemical  conditions.  If  your  son  did  not  know 
this  man,  he  knew  of  him.  (Yes,  he  could  hardly  have 
known  him,  as  he  was  only  about  twelve  at  the  time  of 
Myers'  death.)  At  the  back  of  the  gentleman,  begin- 
ning with  M.  and  who  wrote  poetry,  is  a  whole  group 
of  people.  (The  Society  of  Psychical  Research  group, 
doubtless.)  They  are  very  interested.  And  don't  be 
surprised  if  you  get  messages  from  them,  even  if  you 
don't  know  them." 

Then  Moonstone  stopped  and  said :  ' '  This  is  so  im- 
portant, what  is  going  to  be  said  now,  that  I  want  to 
go  slowly,  for  you  to  write  clearly  every  word"  (in- 
dicating carefully) : — 

"Not  only  is  the  partition  so  thin  that  you  can  hear 
the  operators  on  the  other  side,  but  a  big  hole  has  been 
made." 

Thus  the  former  and  oft-repeated  spirit  message 
from  the  same  source  reappears,  amended  and 
strengthened  in  a  new  version. 

The  Group  Photograph 

Next  comes  what  Sir  Oliver  regards  as  * '  a  peculiarly 
good  piece  of  evidence"  arising  out  of  sittings  in  the 
fall  of  1915  in  which  occurs  the  mention  and  descrip- 
tion of  a  group  photograph  taken  near  the  Front,  of 
the  existence  of  which  the  Lodge  family  were  in  com- 
plete ignorance,  but  which  was  afterwards  verified  in 
a  very  satisfactory  and  complete  manner. 


312  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

Raymond  was  killed  September  14th,  1915.  The  first 
reference  to  a  photograph  of  him  taken  with  other  men 
was  made  by  " Moonstone,"  the  control  of  Peters,  in  a 
sitting  with  Peters  by  Lady  Lodge,  Sept.  27th,  1915. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  this  sitting  was  arranged 
with  Peters  by  Mrs.  Kennedy  at  her  house  for  a  lady 
unknown.  The  following  is  an  extract  from  records 
of  the  sitting : — 

"You  have  several  good  portraits  of  this  boy.  Be- 
fore he  went  away  you  had  got  a  good  portrait  of  him 
— two — no,  three.  Two  where  he  is  alone  and  one 
where  he  is  in  a  group  of  other  men.  He  is  particular 
that  I  should  tell  you  of  this.  In  one  you  see  his  walk- 
ing stick." 

Lady  Lodge  thought  this  statement  of  a  group  photo 
an  error,  or  a  guess,  and  paid  little  attention  thereto. 
Dr.  Lodge,  however,  was  impressed  in  some  degree  by 
the  statement:  "he  is  particular  that  I  should  tell  you 
of  this, ' '  and  made  an  enquiry  or  two  but  nothing  more 
was  heard  of  it  for  two  months.  On  Monday,  Novem- 
ber 29th,  however,  a  letter  came  from  Mrs.  Cheves,  a 
stranger,  mother  of  Captain  Cheves,  who  had  known 
Raymond  and  had  reported  the  nature  of  his  wound. 
Mrs.  Cheves '  letter  ran  as  follows: — 

Dear  Lady  Lodge :  My  son  who  is  M.  0.  to  the  2nd 
South  Lanes,  has  sent  us  a  group  of  officers,  taken  in 
August,  and  I  wondered  whether  you  knew  of  this 
photo,  and  had  a  copy.  If  not,  may  I  send  you  one, 
as  we  have  half  a  dozen  and  also  a  key?  I  hope  you 
will  forgive  my  writing  to  ask  this,  but  I  have  often 
thought  of  you,  and  felt  so  much  for  you  in  your  great 
sorrow.  Sincerely  yours, 

B.  P.  CHEVES. 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    313 

Lady  Lodge  wrote  thanking  her  and  requesting  the 
photo,  but  it  did  not  coine  to  hand. 

Before  it  came  to  hand,  Sir  Oliver  had  had  a  sitting 
with  Mrs.  Leonard  at  her  house  on  December  3rd,  and 
on  this  occasion  he  asked  carefully  concerning  the  pho- 
tograph, wishing  to  get  as  much  detail  as  possible  be- 
fore the  group  picture  should  come  to  hand.  He  in- 
troduced the  topic  and  asked  questions  and  got  answers 
as  reported  below. 

(Feda,  Mrs.  L.'s  child  control,  is  supposed  to  be 
speaking  and  often  speaks  of  herself  in  the  third  per- 
son) : 

Feda:  "Now  ask  him  some  more." 

0.  J.  L. :  "Well,  he  said  something  about  having  a 
photograph  taken  with  some  other  men.  We  haven't 
seen  that  photograph  yet.  Does  he  want  to  say  any- 
thing more  about  it?  He  spoke  about  a  photograph." 

Feda:  "Yes,  but  he*thinks  it  wasn't  here.  He  looks 
at  Feda  and  he  says,  'It  wasn't  to  you,  Feda.'  " 

0.  J.  L. :  "No;  he  is  quite  right.  It  wasn't.  Can 
he  say  where  he  spoke  of  it?" 

Feda:  "He  says  it  wasn't  through  the  table." 

0.  J.  L.:  "No,  it  wasn't." 

Feda:  "It  wasn't  here  at  all.  He  did  not  know  the 
person  he  said  it  through.  The  conditions  were  strange 
there — a  strange  house."  (Quite  true,  it  was  said 
through  Peters  in  Mrs.  Kennedy's  house  during  an 
anonymous  sitting,  on  the  27th  of  September.) 

0.  J.  L. :  "Do  you  recollect  the  photograph  at  all?" 

Feda:  "He  thinks  there  were  several  others  taken 
with  him,  not  one  or  two  but  several." 

0.  J.  L. :  "Were  they  friends  of  yours?" 

Feda:  "Some  of  them,  he  says.    He  did  not  know 


314  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

them  all,  not  very  well.  But  he  knew  some ;  he  heard 
of  some ;  they  were  not  all  friends. '  * 

0.  J.  L. :  "Does  he  remember  how  he  looked  in  the 
phdtot" 

Feda:  "No,  he  does  not  remember  how  he  looked." 

0.  J.  L. :  "No,  no,  I  mean  was  he  standing  up?" 

Feda :  "No,  he  doesn't  seem  to  think  so.  Some  were 
raised  up  round ;  he  was  sitting  down,  and  some  were 
raised  up  back  of  him.  Some  were  standing,  and  some 
were  sitting,  he  thinks. '  * 

0.  J.  L. :  "Were  they  soldiers?" 

Feda:  "He  says  yes — a  mixed  lot.  Somebody  called 
C.  was  on  it  with  him;  and  somebody  called  R. — not 
his  own  name,  but  another  R.  K.  K.  K. — he  says  some- 
thing about  K.  He  also  mentions  a  name  beginning 
with  B.  .  .  .  put  down  B." 

0.  J.  L.:  "I  am  asking  about  the  photograph  be- 
cause we  haven't  seen  it  yet.  Somebody  is  going  to 
send  it  to  us.  We  have  heard  that  it  exists,  and  that 's 
all." 

Feda :  ' '  He  has  the  impression  of  about  a  dozen  on 
it.  A  dozen,  he  says,  if  not  more.  Feda  thinks  it  must 
be  a  big  photograph.  No — he  does  not  think  so.  He 
says  they  were  grouped  close  together." 

0.  J.  L.:  "Did  he  have  a  stick?" 

Feda:  "He  doesn't  remember  that.  He  remembers 
that  somebody  wanted  to  lean  on  him,  but  he  is  not  so 
sure  if  he  was  taken  with  some  one  leaning  on  him. 
But  somebody  wanted  to  lean  on  him,  he  remembers. 
The  last  what  he  gave  you,  what  were  a  B.,  will  be 
rather  prominent  in  that  photograph.  It  wasn't  taken 
in  a  photographer's  place." 

O.  J.  L.:  "Was  it  out  of  doors!" 

Feda:  "Yes,  practically"  (Then  sotto  voce).  "What 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    315 

you  mean  'Yes,  practically';  must  have  been  out  of 
doors  or  not  out  of  doors.  You  mean  'Yes,'  don't 
you?" 

Feda  thinks  he  means  "Yes,"  because  he  says  "prac- 
tically." 

0.  J.  L. :  "It  may  have  been  a  shelter." 
Feda:  "It  might  have  been."  "Try  to  show  Feda." 
At  the  back  he  shows  me  lines  going  down.    It  looks 
like  a  black  background,  with  lines  at  the  back  of 
them. 

(Feda  here  kept  drawing  vertical  lines  in  the  air.) 

The  photo  arrived  on  the  afternoon  of  Dec.  7th. 
Meanwhile,  December  6th,  Lady  Lodge  had  been  look- 
ing up  Raymond's  diary,  now  returned  from  the  front 
with  the  kit,  and  found  the  entry :  24th  August.  Photo 
taken. 

He  had  had  one  home  leave — 16th  July  to  20th  July. 
As  the  photo  was  not  yet  taken  he  could  not  have  im- 
parted any  information  regarding  it  on  his  home  com- 
ing, and  he  had  not  mentioned  it  in  correspondence. 

On  the  morning  of  December  7th,  and  before  the 
photo  arrived,  Sir  Oliver  wrote  out  in  detail  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  photo,  from  statements  made  by  Raymond 
in  the  various  sittings,  which  in  many  striking  details 
was  verified  from  the  photo  itself. 

The  photo  was  a  12x9  inch  from  a  5x7  original,  the 
number  of  officers  in  the  photo  being  twenty-one.  Five 
are  in  the  front  row  squatting  on  the  grass,  Raymond 
being  one,  the  second  from  the  right.  Seven  in  the 
second  row  are  seated  on  chairs.  Nine  are  in  the  back 
row  standing  up  against  the  outside  of  a  temporary 
wooden  structure,  such  as  might  be  a  hospital  shed,  or 
something  of  that  kind. 


316  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

"On  examining  the  photo,"  says  Sir  Oliver,  "we 
found  that  every  peculiarity  mentioned  by  Raymond, 
unaided  by  the  medium,  was  strikingly  correct.  The 
walking  stick  is  there.  There  are  six  conspicuous  verti- 
cal lines  on  the  roof  of  the  shed,  but  the  horizontal  lines 
in  the  background  generally  are  equally  conspicuous. 
The  men  are  a  i mixed  lot,'  inasmuch  as  they  repre- 
sent different  companies  as  there  are  too  many  officers 
for  one  company.  Captain  S.  T.  Boast — the  B.  re- 
ferred to — is  the  most  conspicuous  figure  in  the  group. 
Officers  whose  names  begin  with  B.,  C.  and  R.  are  in  the 
group.  Some  are  sitting  and  some  are  standing  as 
Raymond's  description  required. 

* '  The  background  is  dark  and  is  conspicuously  lined. 
It  is  out  of  doors  and  close  in  front  of  a  shed  or  mili- 
tary hut.  By  far  the  most  striking  piece  of  evidence 
is  the  fact  that  some  one  behind  Raymond  is  leaning 
or  resting  a  hand  on  his  shoulder.  The  photograph 
shows  this  actual  occurrence  and  indicates  that  Ray- 
mond is  somewhat  annoyed  by  it.  It  is  the  only  case 
in  the  photograph  where  one  man  is  leaning  or  resting 
his  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  another." 

In  his  concluding  comment  on  the  photo  episode,  Sir 
Oliver  observes  that  the  case  furnishes  something  of 
the  nature  of  "cross-correspondence,"  inasmuch  as  a 
reference  to  the  photo  was  given  in  answer  to  a  ques- 
tion through  another  medium.  The  elimination  of  telep- 
athy from  the  living,  except  under  the  far-fetched 
hypothesis  of  the  unconscious  influence  of  complete 
strangers,  was  therefore  exceptionally  complete.  Sir 
Oliver  is  confident  that  Raymond  expected  this  to  be 
a  particularly  good  piece  of  evidence  from  the  state- 
ment of  Moonstone:  "He  is  particular  that  I  should 
tell  you  this."  He  contends  that  the  amount  of  co- 


317 

incidence  and  agreement  in  detail  between  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  photo  by  Raymond  through  the  different 
mediums  and  the  actual  photo  itself,  as  it  came  to  hand 
later,  "is  quite  beyond  chance  or  guess  work."  In 
short,  it  proves  in  his  view  actual  communication  from 
his  departed  son.  As  this  case  seems  destined  to  be- 
come historic,  the  reader  will,  doubtless,  be  glad  to 
have  the  following  summary  of  events  and  dates : — 

Calendar 

July  20th,  1915 — Raymond's  last  visit  home. 

August  24th,  1915 — Photo  taken  at  the  Front,  as 
shown  in  Raymond's  private  diary,  but  not  mentioned 
by  him. 

September  14th,  1915 — Raymond's  death. 

September  27th,  1915 — Peters'  (Moonstone's)  men- 
tion of  the  photograph  as  a  message  from  Raymond. 

October  15th,  1915 — Negative  sent  with  other  nega- 
tives by  Captain  Sydney  T.  Boast,  from  the  Front  in 
Flanders,  to  Messrs.  Gale  and  Polden,  Aldershot,  for 
printing. 

November  29th,  1915 — Mrs.  Cheves  wrote  spontane- 
ously saying  that  she  had  a  group  photograph  of  some 
2nd  South  Lancashire  officers  which  she  could  send  if 
desired. 

December  3rd,  1915 — Feda's  (Mrs.  Leonard's)  fur- 
ther description  of  a  photograph  which  had  been  men- 
tioned through  another  medium,  in  answer  to  a  direct 
question  addressed  to  Raymond. 

December  6th,  1915 — Lady  Lodge  found  an  entry 
in  Raymond's  diary,  showing  that  a  photograph  had 
been  taken  on  August  24th. 

December  7th,  1915 — Morning — To  make  sure,  Sir 


318  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

Oliver  wrote  to  J.  A.  Hill  his  impression  of  the  photo- 
graph before  it  came. 

December  7th,  1915 — Afternoon — Arrival  of  the 
photograph. 

December  7th,  1915 — Evening — The  photograph  was 
shown  to  the  home  members  of  the  family  and  examined 
by  Sir  Oliver  and  found  to  accord  in  a  remarkable 
manner  with  the  messages  from  Raymond. 

The  Return  of  Private  Thomas  Dowding 

I  will  conclude  this  Chapter  with  a  brief  resume  of 
the  book  on  the  return  of  Private  Thomas  Dowding, 
which  contains  many  incidents  of  extreme  interest,  and, 
unlike  most  books  automatically  written,  it  is  modest, 
straightforward  and  carries  with  it  a  certain  sincerity 
which  compels  belief.  The  facts  in  the  case  are  briefly 
these : — 

Private  Dowding  was  a  schoolmaster  in  a  small  East 
Coast  town  before  the  war.  He  was  an  orphan,  some- 
what of  a  recluse,  and  made  friends  but  slowly.  He 
became  a  soldier  in  the  autumn  of  1915,  and  left  his 
narrow  village  life  behind  him.  He  joined  as  a  pri- 
vate and  died  as  a  private.  His  soldiering  lasted  nine 
months,  eight  of  which  were  spent  in  training  in  North- 
umberland. He  went  out  with  his  battalion  to  France 
in  July,  1916,  and  went  into  the  trenches  almost  at 
once.  He  was  killed  by  a  shell  splinter  one  evening  in 
August,  and  his  body  was  buried  on  the  following  day. 

That  is  the  brief  graphic  sketch  he  gives  of  himself 
in  a  communication  he  wrote  seven  months  later  by  the 
hand  of  Mr.  Tudor  Pole,  who  sets  down  the  circum- 
stances thus : — 

"On  Monday,  12th  March,  1917,  I  was  walking  by 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    319 

the  sea  when  I  felt  the  presence  of  some  one.  I  looked 
round;  no  one  was  in  sight.  All  that  day  I  felt  as  if 
some  one  were  following  me,  trying  to  reach  my 
thoughts.  Suddenly  I  said  to  myself,  'It  is  a  soldier. 
He  has  been  killed  in  battle,  and  wants  to  communi- 
cate!' That  evening  I  happened  to  call  upon  a  lady 
who  possesses  some  degree  of  clairvoyant  power.  I 
had  forgotten  about  the  soldier  until  she  described  a 
man  dressed  in  khaki,  sitting  in  a  chair  near  me.  He 
was  gazing  intently  in  my  direction.  She  said  he  was 
mature,  wore  a  small  moustache,  and  seemed  some- 
what sad.  Not  a  very  intelligent  character  appar- 
ently, but  an  honest  one.  I  came  home  and  sat  down 
at  my  writing-table.  Immediately  my  pen  moved.  Did 
I  move  it?  Yes,  in  an  involuntary  way.  The  thoughts 
were  not  my  own;  the  language  was  a  little  unusual. 
Ideas  were  conveyed  in  short,  simple  phrases.  It  would 
really  seem  as  if  some  intelligence  outside  myself  were 
speaking  through  my  mind  and  my  pen.  Some  of  the 
ideas  were  not  in  conformity  with  preconceived  notions 
of  my  own.  The  messages  I  received  in  this  manner 
from  'Thomas  Dowding,'  recluse,  schoolmaster,  sol- 
dier, are  set  down  exactly  as  they  reached  me, ' ' 

These  were  all  written  between  March  12th  and 
18th,  excepting  a  short  final  note  received  at  Rothes 
Library  on  the  following  Good  Friday.  They  form  a 
document  of  the  deepest  interest,  and  picture  the  Pri- 
vate's going-out  from  the  strife  and  slaughter  of  the 
battlefield  to  his  new  life  in  the  spirit.  They  make 
vivid  what  must  be  common  experience  of  many  sol- 
diers during  every  day  of  this  war.  They  are  slain, 
buried,  and  what  then  T  Are  they  only  a  memory  of  a 
life  that  is  past  and  done  with?  Here  is  what  Private 


320  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

Dowding  lias  to  say  on  the  first  occasion  he  guided  the 
pen  in  Mr.  Tudor-Poole  's  hand : — 

".  .  .  As  you  see  (he  observes)  I  hasten  over 
these  important  events,  important  to  me  once,  but  now 
of  no  real  consequence.  How  we  overestimate  the  sig- 
nificance of  earthly  happiness !  I  was  afraid  of  being 
killed,  and  was  sure  it  would  mean  extinction.  There 
are  still  many  who  believe  that.  It  is  because  extinc- 
tion has  not  come  to  me  that  I  want  to  speak  to  you. 

' 'Physical  death  is  nothing.  There  really  is  no  cause 
for  fear.  Some  of  my  pals  grieved  for  me.  When  I 
'went  West'  they  thought  I  was  dead  for  good.  This 
is  what  happened.  I  had  a  perfectly  clear  memory  of 
the  whole  incident.  I  was  waiting  at  the  corner  of  a 
traverse  to  go  on  guard.  It  was  a  fine  evening.  I  had 
no  special  intimation  of  danger,  until  I  heard  the  whizz 
of  a  shell.  Then  followed  an  explosion  somewhere  be- 
hind me.  I  crouched  down  involuntarily,  but  was  too 
late.  Something  stuck,  hard,  hard,  hard,  against  my 
neck.  Shall  I  ever  lose  the  memory  of  that  hardness  I 
It  is  the  only  unpleasant  incident  that  I  can  remember. 
I  fell,  and  as  I  did  so,  without  passing  through  any  ap- 
parent interval  of  unconsciousness,  I  found  myself  out- 
side myself!  You  see  I  am  telling  my  story  simply; 
you  will  find  it  easier  to  understand.  You  will  know 
what  a  small  incident  this  dying  is.  Think  of  it !  One 
moment  I  was  alive,  in  the  earthly  sense,  looking  over 
a  trench  parapet,  unalarmed,  normal.  Five  seconds 
later  I  was  standing  outside  my  body,  helping  two  of 
my  pals  carry  my  body  down  the  trench  labyrinth  to^ 
wards  a  dressing  station.  ...  I  seemed  in  a  dream.  I 
had  dreamt  that  some  one  or  something  had  knocked 
me  down.  Now  I  was  dreaming  that  I  was  outside 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    321 

my  body.  Soon  I  thought  I  shall  wake  up  and  find 
myself  in  the  traverse,  waiting  to  go  on  guard.  .  .  ." 

Private  Dowding,  it  will  be  observed,  found  death  it- 
self the  reverse  of  alarming.  "As  in  my  case,"  (he 
observes)  "thousands  of  soldiers  pass  over  without 
knowing  it.  If  there  be  shock,  it  is  not  the  shock  of  the 
physical  death.  Shock  comes  later,  when  comprehen- 
sion dawns.  Where  is  my  body?  Surely  I  am  not 
dead!"  Dowding  then  followed  his  body  as  it  was 
taken  to  a  mortuary  and  stood  near  it  all  night,  wateh- 
ing,  as  he  expresses  it,  but  without  thoughts.  Finally 
he  lost  consciousness  and  slept  soundly.  When  he 
awoke  his  body  had  disappeared.  He  hunted  for  it 
in  vain ;  it  had  been  buried  or  burned.  But  he  found 
himself  in  a  body  of  some  sort ;  he  can  tell  very  little 
about  it  excepting  that  it  is  convenient,  does  not  ache 
or  tire,  and  seems  similar  in  formation  to  his  old  body. 
He  seemed  to  float  above  the  battlefield  in  a  mist  tha>t 
muffled  sound  and  blurred  vision.  It  was  like  looking 
down  from  above  the  clouds.  Later,  he  says: — "A 
new  sensation  came  to  me.  It  was  as  if  I  stood  on  a 
pinnacle,  all  that  was  essential  of  me.  The  rest  re- 
ceded, receded.  .  .  .  All  appertaining  to  bodily  life 
seemed  to  be  dropping  away  down  into  a  bottomless 
abyss.  There  was  no  feeling  of  irretrievable  loss.  My 
being  seemed  both  minute  and  expansive  at  the  same 
time.  All  that  was  not  really  me  slipped  down  and 
away. ' ' 

It  was  at  this  point  that  he  first  realized  that  he  had 
been  killed  by  a  German  shell.  His  description  of  his 
impression  of  the  difference  between  his  present  body 
and  that  which  he  possessed  when  in  the  physical  state 
is  curious,  though  a  little  bewildering. 

'  *  When  I  lived  in  the  physical  body  I  never  thought 


322  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

much  about  it.  I  knew  very  little  about  physiology. 
Now  that  I  am  living  under  other  conditions  I  remain 
incurious  as  to  that  through  which  I  express  myself. 
By  this  I  mean  that  I  am  still  evidently  in  a  body  of 
some  sort,  but  I  can  tell  you  very  little  about  it.  It 
has  no  interest  for  me.  It  is  convenient.  It  does  not 
ache  or  tire.  It  seems  similar  in  formation  to  my  old 
body.  There  is  a  subtle  difference,  but  I  cannot  at- 
tempt analysis." 

Describing  his  state  of  consciousness  under  these 
new  conditions,  he  observes:  "When  I  first  woke 
this  second  time,  I  felt  cramped.  This  is  passing, 
and  a  sense  of  real  freedom  comes;  I  am  sim- 
ply myself,  alive,  in  a  region  where  food  and  drink 
seem  unnecessary.  Otherwise  life  is  strangely  similar 
to  earth  life. ' '  Private  Dowding  suffered  at  first  from 
a  sense  of  loneliness  and  solitude,  but  after  a  time  met 
his  brother,  who  had  passed  over  three  years  earlier, 
and  came  down  to  welcome  him.  The  brother  took  him 
to  one  of  the  rest-halls  "specially  prepared  for  newly 
arrived  pilgrims."  "Confusion"  (he  says),  "at  once 
dropped  away  from  me.  Never  shall  I  forget  my  hap- 
piness. I  sat  in  the  alcove  of  a  splendid  domed  hall. 
The  splashing  of  a  fountain  reached  my  tired  being 
and  soothed  me.  The  fountain  played  music,  colour, 
harmony,  bliss.  All  discordances  vanished,  and  I  was 
at  peace.  ..." 

In  the  next  communication  Private  Dowding  states 
that  he  is  beginning  to  meet  people  and  to  exchange 
ideas,  and  expresses  surprise  that  the  only  person  he 
came  across  for  a  long  time  was  his  brother.  The  ex- 
planation given  to  him  of  this  fact  was  that  he  was 
never  in  reality  alone,  but  that  owing  to  the  isolated 
character  of  his  life  on  earth  he  had  shut  himself  up 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    323 

in  his  own  shell  and  was  therefore  unable  to  realize 
the  presence  of  those  who  were  around  him.  The 
moral  he  draws  from  his  experience  on  the  other  side 
is  that  it  is  dangerous  to  live  too  much  to  oneself,  and 
that  the  life  of  a  recluse  is  unwise  except  for  the  very 
few  who  have  work  which  requires  complete  silence  and 
isolation.  In  this  sense  Private  Dowding  realizes  that 
the  war  was  his  salvation  through  dragging  him  out 
into  real  life  and  association  with  his  fellow-men. 
"Each  of  us"  (he  says),  "creates  his  own  purgatorial 
conditions."  "If  I  had  my  time  over  again,  how  dif- 
ferently I  should  live  my  life.  ...  I  neither  lived 
enough  among  my  fellow-men  nor  interested  myself 
sufficiently  in  their  affair's."  How  many  so-called 
Christians  there  are  who,  like  Private  Dowding,  refuse 
obstinately  to  learn  one  of  the  most  important  lessons 
taught  by  the  life  of  Him  who  was  so  often  described 
as  "the  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners !" 

A  fresh  shock  was  Shortly  in  store  for  our  friend. 
On  returning  to  the  rest-hall  on  one  occasion  he  met  a 
messenger  from  a  higher  sphere  from  whom  he  re- 
ceived a  very  decided  cold  water  douche.  "Do  you 
know"  (he  asked)  "that  most  of  what  you  have  con- 
veyed to  your  friend  at  the  matter  end  of  the  line  is 
quite  illusory?"  The  Messenger  suggested  that  Dowd- 
ing had  better  do  a  little  living  first  in  the  new  sphere 
which  he  had  reached,  before  talking  about  it  to  his 
friends  on  this  side  of  the  barrier.  Afterwards,  how- 
ever, having  talked  the  matter  over  with  his  brother,  he 
relaxed  somewhat,  only  stipulating  that  he  should  not 
convey  to  his  friends  here  the  impression  that  his  ex- 
periences were  more  real  than  they  actually  were.  Our 
friend  was  ready  to  grant,  looking  back  on  his  life 
from  the  other  side,  that  his  experiences  here  had  been 


324  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

in  the  main  in  the  nature  of  Maya  or  illusion — "A 
long  chain  of  illusory  episodes,"  as  he  expresses  it, 
"with,  iny  poor  little  self  in  the  centre. "  But  he  did 
not  like  to  think  that  his  impressions  about  his  present 
life  were  mere  illusions  also.  "How  much,"  says  Mr. 
Ralph  Shirley,  "of  what  we  learn  of  that  part  of  the 
other  world  which  impinges  on  our  own  is  of  dream- 
like character!  How  many  of  the  episodes  narrated, 
for  example,  in  Letters  from  a  Living  Dead  Man, 
partake  of  this  unreal  character, — the  people  Judge 
Hatch  met  frequently  living  in  what  was  obviously  an 
entirely  illusory  world  of  their  own,  created  by  their 
imagination ;  as,  for  instance,  the  good  lady  who  fan- 
cied that  she  was  living  at  some  fresh  boarding  house, 
even  more  undesirable  than  its  predecessors!  Still, 
the  experiences,  even  in  our  dream  states,  illusory  as 
we  justly  term  most  of  them,  are  at  least  experiences, 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  the  illusory  character  of  our 
life  on  earth  does  not  greatly  detract  from  its  impor- 
tance in  so  far  as  our  own  growth  and  development  are 
concerned." 

What  will  perhaps  attract  most  attention  at  the  pres- 
ent time  in  connection  with  the  communications  of  Pri- 
vate Dowding  are  the  remarks  which  he  records  as 
having  been  made  to  him  in  a  later  interview  by  the 
Messenger  above  mentioned  with  regard  to  the  causes 
and  real  character  of  the  war  as  looked  at  from  a  high- 
er and  more  spiritual  plane.  These  certainly  give  food 
for  thought,  and  throw  a  different  light  on  the  posi- 
tion to  that  with  which  we  are  familiar  through  our 
reading  of  the  papers  and  the  literature  of  today.  ' '  I 
am  told"  (he  says),  "that  lust  for  wealth  of  one  ma- 
terial kind  or  another  was  the  real  cause  of  the  war. 
Nevertheless,  as  the  result  of  the  war,  all  the  nations 


COMMUNICATIONS  FROM  SOLDIERS    325 

engaged  will  be  far  poorer  than  they  were  before." 
More  interesting  still  is  another  point  which  has  prob- 
ably not  occurred  to  many.  The  war,  says  Dowding,  is, 
he  learns,  being  turned  into  a  celestial  instrument.  It 
is,  in  short,  an  object  lesson,  to  prove  the  impotence 
of  material  force.  It  is  the  faith  in  this  which  for 
many  years  past  has  been  leading  the  nations,  not  Ger- 
many, only,  more  and  more  astray  from  the  path  of 
truth,  and  has  been  plunging  the  whole  world  deeper 
and  deeper  into  the  quagmire  of  illusion.  The  moral 
of  the  whole  cataclysm  is  the  worthlessness  of  Prince 
Bismarck's  gospel  of  "blood  and  iron.*' 

"Material  forces"  (says  our  friend  from  the  other 
side)  "are  becoming  exhausted;  that  is  to  say,  the 
more  they  are  used,  the  less  they  achieve."  Strange 
thought !  People  will  realize  that  material  force  leads 
nowhere,  is  indeed  an  illusion.  .  .  .  Apparently  the  im- 
potent clash  of  material  forces  is  creating  a  kind  of 
vacuum.  Into  this  vacuum  spiritual  power  is  to  be 
poured  and  poured.  He  has  seen  with  his  own  eyes 
the  reservoirs.  The  Water  of  Life  fills  them.  High 
beings,  God's  messengers,  guard  the  sluice  gates. 
They  await  the  word  of  command.  Then  will  the  Wa- 
ter of  Life  be  released. 

All  this  Dowding  confesses  is  rather  beyond  him. 
As  he  observes,  "I  never  used  my  opportunities  during 
earth  life.  My  spiritual  nature  atrophied." 

A  great  deal  is  said  about  reflection;  how  we  can 
clear  our  own  poor  thoughts  and  illusions  and  allow 
the  Christ-power  to  reflect  through  us.  Evidently  the 
power  is  wonderful.  The  Messenger  seemed  to  love 
to  speak  of  it ;  yet  he  was  in  awe  of  it.  It  clears  away 
illusions  as  the  sun  clears  away  fog.  He  said:  "I 
am  still  living  in  a  fog,  a  fog  of  my  own  creation  and 


326  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

design.  Well !  Well !  Once  I  thought  I  knew  a  lot. 
Then  I  was  sure  I  knew  a  little.  Now  I  know  I  know 
nothing. ' ' 

The  Private  was  thereafter  taken  by  his  brother  to 
a  Hall  of  Silence. 

11  Strength  and  consolation  came  to  me  within  its 
walls.  All  that  the  Messenger  had  said  to  me  came 
back  to  me.  Understanding  of  many  truths  dawned 
within  me.  One  great  truth  has  become  my  constant 
companion.  I  sum  it  up  thus:  'Empty  yourself  if 
you  would  be  filled.'  The  Waters  of  Life  can  never 
flow  through  me  until  I  have  surrendered  my  whole 
self.  I  begin  to  see  the  wisdom  of  this.  .  .  .  Some- 
where within  the  soul  there  is  silence.  Attain  unto  it. 
It  is  a  *  pearl  of  great  price.'  " 

Then  he  accompanied  the  Messenger  to  the  Mount  of 
Vision,  where  he  was  told  that  a  spiritual  revival  was 
destined  to  take  place  within  all  the  great  world-faiths, 
when  unity  will  be  established,  and  universal  peace  be- 
come an  accomplished  fact.  .  .  . 

[NOTE.  Since  this  book  went  to  press,  several  important  articles 
have  appeared,  by  well-known  authors, — giving  additional  facts  and 
cases  of  value.  Among  these,  I  might  mention  Mr.  Max  Pember- 
ton's  article  in  The  Weekly  Despatch  (London) ;  that  by  Dr.  Horace 
Leaf,  in  The  Two  Worlds  (Manchester) ;  several  articles  by  Sir 
Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  iu  The  Metropolitan  Magazine  (New  York), — 
and  others.  All  these  take  the  same  general  stand  regarding  the 
phenomena  that  I  have  taken  in  this  book, — and  supply  additional 
material,  supporting  these  conclusions.] 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  SPIEITUAL  REVIVAL,  AWAKENED  BY  THE  WAR 

"I  WISH  I  were  a  poet,  so  that  I  could  write,  before  set- 
ting out,  a  masterpiece  dedicated  to  the  Germans, 
thanking  them  for  having  brought  back  the  age  of  the 
martyrs.  I  always  used  to  picture  to  myself  the  atroci- 
ties of  war,  and  now  I  see  it  as  providing  commonplace 
men  like  myself  with  the  occasion,  not  so  much  of  per- 
forming brilliant  actions,  as  in  dying  in  creating  some- 
thing, of  which  I  am  certain,  although  I  see  it  incom- 
pletely. To  fall  under  some  pine-tree  in  the  Vosges,  to 
die  without  any  knowing  of  it,  appears  to  me  as  an  act 
of  life  which  cannot  b£  in  vain.  Perhaps  they  will  kill 
us  all.  They  will  murder  France.  Yet  I  cannot  help 
but  believe  that  we  are  already  victorious.  They  say 
that  those  condemned  to  death,  at  the  moment  of  their 
execution,  see  as  though  fore-shortened  all  their  lives 
passing  before  their  eyes.  Last  night  I  was  rather  like 
them.  I  saw  the  whole  of  my  life  at  home:  the  old 
house,  its  nooks  and  corners,  its  furniture,  the  folks 
and  the  beasts,  and  the  village,  too,  with  its  cries,  its 
smells,  and  the  old  pastor,  who  was  such  a  frightful 
bore,  yet  such  an  original  one.  I  saw  myself  standing 
before  him  at  my  catechism,  one  day  when  he  had  told 
us  to  learn  about  the  Devil,  and  the  energy  with  which 
he  makes  war  upon  God,  and  I  saw  the  ray  of  beauty 
which  transfigured  him  when  he  replied,  to  some 
urchin's  questions:  'God  cannot  be  vanquished  and 

327 


328  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

the  Devil  is  His  servant.'  I  did  not  understand  then, 
what  he  meant,  and  I  do  not  understand  yet,  but  the 
words  have  stayed  with  me,  and  involuntarily  I  apply 
them  to  the  present  situation. ' '  * 

So  wrote  M.  Sabatier,  in  his  very  interesting  study  of 
the  religious  revival  which  has  swept  through  Franco, 
— and  in  fact  all  the  belligerents,  as  one  of  the  results  of 
this  great  war.  Religion  is  always  a  difficult  thing  to 
touch  upon  or  write  about,  since  no  two  people  agree. 
There  is  this  factor  about  religion,  however,  with  which 
most  people  would  probably  be  found  to  agree,  and 
it  is  that,  in  times  of  stress  and  anguish,  one  feels 
keenly  the  sense  of  one's  loneliness  and  helplessness, 
and  the  innate  desire  to  seek  help  and  comfort  from 
some  higher  source;  and  further,  that  this  source  is 
capable  at  times  of  helping  the  supplicant  who  thus 
petitions.  What  the  nature  of  this  inner  help  may  be 
we  do  not  pretend  to  say,  but — if  human  testimony 
goes  for  anything — it  certainly  has  been  given  in  many 
thousands  of  cases.  Religion  is  not  orthodoxy.  It  is 
something  quite  different  from  that,  we  all  admit.  .  .  . 
Religion  comprises,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  three  series 
of  facts :  firstly,  the  intuition  of  a  personal  and  social 
ideal  above  the  present  reality;  secondly,  a  movement 
of  our  whole  being,  physical  as  well  as  moral,  towards 
that  ideal,  when  we  feel  that  we  are  made  for  it,  we 
also  feel,  despite  all  obstacles,  that  we  are  capable  of 
attaining  it:  the  act  of  faith  which,  plainly  perceiving 
the  difficulties,  leaves  to  reason  the  task  of  studying 
them,  and  regards  itself  as  certain  of  victory ;  if  it  must 
be,  after  many  defeats,  and  even  through  every  sacri- 
fice. .  .  . 

Is  this  definition  exact?    If  it  is,  religion  is  the  con- 
*  Paul  Sabatier :    A  Frenchman's  Thoughts  on  the  War,  pp.  31-32. 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      329 

trary  of  retrogression:  the  religious  act  par  excellence, 
far  from  being  the  act  by  which  bewildered  man,  losing 
his  bearings,  abandons  the  rudder  of  his  life,  is,  on  the 
contrary,  the  human  act  par  excellence;  it  is,  in  the 
first  place,  the  intuition  by  whose  means  man  becomes 
conscious  at  once  of  his  empire  over  the  visible  world 
and  his  subordination  to  an  ideal  world  which  we  can- 
not see,  yet  which  we  perceive  so  surely  that  we  pro- 
claim it  eternal;  secondly,  it  is  the  act  by  which  man, 
in  the  fullness  of  his  life  and  strength,  adheres  to  this 
ideal  and  finds  in  his  adhesion  the  secret  of  individual 
and  social  life.  Religion  is  therefore  anticipation;  it 
is  activity  at  its  fullest ;  it  is  conscious  progress ;  it  is 
liberty,  love,  creation.  .  .  .  And  now  if  we  return  to 
the  question  we  were  considering  a  while  ago:  will 
this  war  result  in  a  religious  revival? — we  must  reply 
that  the  very  basis  of  this  war  is  in  a  sense  religious 
or  spiritual;  it  is  characterized  by  the  fact  that  it  is, 
more  than  any  war  has  hitherto  been,  an  international 
conflict,  an  effort  to  defend  not  material  wealth,  but 
the  ideal  tendencies  of  civilization,  against  materialism 
erected  into  a  systematic  doctrine.  .  .  . 

We  need  not  watch  for  the  religious  revival,  for  it 
has  taken  place,  and  those  were  blind  indeed  who  did 
not  see  it.  It  is  true  that  the  Churches,  which  are  to 
religion  what  the  schools  are  to  knowledge,  are  asking : 
"But  who — which  Church — will  profit  by  the  revival?" 
Just  as  an  advance  in  knowledge  profits  all  the  schools, 
and  shines  before  all  the  world,  so  it  will  be  with  the 
present  religious  revival :  it  will  profit  all  the  Churches, 
even  all  the  anti-churches.  In  drawing  nearer  to  that 
ideal  towards  which,  by  divers  paths,  we  seek  to  climb, 
we  draw  nearer  to  one  another.  The  religious  revival 


330  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

will  profit  most  those  who  serve  it,  not  those  who  make 
use  of  it. 

This  religious  character  of  the  war  against  Ger- 
many has  been  felt  by  all  the  belligerents ;  but  the  Brit- 
ish have  perceived  it  in  all  its  plenitude.  And  I  need 
only  recall  an  engraving  published  in  one  of  our 
periodicals,  which  symbolized  the  soul  of  this  war  by 
two  persons.  On  one  side  of  this  picture  was  the  King 
of  the  Belgians,  dreaming  alone  in  a  ruined  house,  in 
the  midst  of  a  landscape  which  revealed,  in  all  direc- 
tions, nothing  but  devastated  villages,  and  Wilhelm  II. 
suddenly  rose  before  him,  and  in  a  tone  which  he 
sought  to  render  amiable,  asked  him :  *  *  Then  you  have 
lost  everything?" — "Yes,  I  have  lost  everything,"  the 
King  replied,  "but  I  have  saved  my  soul!" 

The  deeper  spiritual  issues  of  the  war  are  indeed 
but  imperfectly  apprehended  by  us,  and  even  "the 
churches,"  as  Mr.  John  Jay  Chapman  so  well  says, 
"do  not  seem  to  be  aware  that  these  matters  can  not 
be  expressed  in  terms  of  social  betterment."  Our 
piety  he  likens  to  the  activity  of  Martha,  since  it  is 
"preoccupied  with  the  welfare  of  the  troops,  the  care 
of  the  wounded,  the  succour  given  to  depopulated  prov- 
inces." But  there  is  a  "new  war-music,"  he  tells  us, 
which  even  our  churches,  "tuned  to  the  old  material- 
ism," have  not  heard  the  accents  of.  He  feels  a  danger 
to  be  lurking  "lest  the  churches,  by  clinging  to  the 
phrases  and  formulas  of  the  nineteenth  century,  lose 
the  key  to  the  future. ' '  He  foresees  the  possibility  that 
the  greater  age  now  opening  "will  be  accompanied  by 
a  destruction  of  much  that  the  nineteenth  century  re- 
garded as  the  foundation  of  society,"  and  unless  "re- 
ligion discards  the  language  of  materialism,  the 
churches  may  be  left  in  darkness  and  despair  even 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      331 

while  the  great  spiritual  light  of  the  world  is  burning 
for  them. ' '  Mr.  Chapman  is  the  father  of  the  brilliant 
aviator,  Victor  Chapman,  who  was  the  first  American 
in  the  flying  corps  to  give  his  life  for  France.  And 
when  he  speaks  in  The  Churchman  (New  York)  of  the 
personal  relation  each  one  of  us  must  now  bear  to  the 
conflict  he  speaks  as  one  whose  initiation  in  such 
thoughts  and  emotions  came  almost  a  full  year  before 
that  of  most  of  his  fellow  countrymen : 

"When  the  war  began  many  of  us  thought  of  it  as 
a  distant  and  transient  thing.  We  adjusted  our  lives  to 
it  as  to  an  emergency.  As  time  wore  on,  however,  the 
persistent  influence  of  the  dark  on-moving  cloud  began 
to  penetrate  and  to  obsess  every  mind.  And  now  each 
of  us  has  come  to  feel  that  he  has  an  inner  relation  to 
the  tragedy  which  overshadows  and  swallows  up  his 
external  relations  to  it.  We  are  overcome  by  a  feeling 
of  awe  and  of  helplessness,  which,  could  we  but  know 
it,  is  the  very  elixir  and  antidote  that  nature  distils  in 
us — the  cure  for  the  plague,  the  road  to  salvation. 

"In  ordinary  times  men's  spiritual  knowledge  gen- 
erally comes  to  them  through  sickness  or  through  grief. 
These  things  shut  out  the  buzz  and  clamour  of  passing 
events,  and  open  people's  ears  to  the  silent  forces 
which  really  control  their  being.  Now  this  great  sick- 
ness of  the  war  converts  thousands  daily,  and  one  can 
hardly  find  a  man  who  does  not  show  signs  of  illumina- 
tion. The  young  men,  as  of  old,  shine  as  the  natural 
heroes  of  the  race.  Their  readiness  to  die  restores  our 
faith  in  human  nature.  It  reminds  us  that  the  sacri- 
ficial part  is  what  counts  in  the  spread  of  truth.  This 
much  we  know,  and  we  know  little  else,  about  morality 
and  religion.  To  count  the  cost  and  dwell  upon  the  life 
and  property  sacrificed  in  heroic  action  is  to  doubt  the 


332  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

value  of  truth.  To  what  better  use  could  these  young 
heroes  and  all  this  amassed  wealth  have  been  put?  It 
was  for  this  that  they  existed.  As  for  the  pain  in- 
volved in  their  -engulfing,  as  for  the  agony  of  the  expe- 
rience, this  is  a  part  of  the  regeneration.  People  seem 
to  desire  the  power  of  Christ,  and  the  benevolence  of 
Christ,  without  the  Passion.  The  thing  can  not  be 
done ;  and  nothing  but  an  age  of  materialism  could  have 
so  softened  the  fibre  of  moralists  as  to  lead  men  to 
think  it  possible.  There  is  a  species  of  tenderness  to- 
ward human  suffering  which,  if  exhibited  in  the  midst 
of  a  heroic  crisis,  turns  into  a  morbid  element.  The 
best  of  men  sometimes  preach  about  the  horrors  of 
war  as  if  they  thought  we  suspected  them  of  delighting 
in  war.  Having  bathed  all  the  mothers  of  the  drafted 
men  in  tears,  they  think  to  lift  the  question  to  a  higher 
plane  by  talking  of  the  need  to  win  the  war.  But  it  is 
too  late.  They  have  muddled  the  issue  by  commisera- 
tion, and  no  amount  of  reasoning  will  restore  the  tem- 
per of  instinctive  heroism  to  their  words.  Once  dwell 
upon  horror  and  indulge  in  analysis — as  Macbeth  did— 
and  you  confuse  the  conscience.  Pathos  is  the  enemy 
of  courage.  As  for  winning  the  war,  the  war  is  already 
won  for  those  who  died  in  it,  and  we  do  not  need  to 
wait  for  a  Congress  of  Vienna  to  appraise  the  value 
of  their  service." 

All  the  preliminary  obeisances  to  peace  which  good 
patriots  put  into  their  war-discourses  are,  indeed,  done 
in  the  name  of  Christianity  and  on  the  theory  that 
Christ  valued  peace  above  all  things.  We  are  correct- 
ed in  this  view,  so  as  to  take  the  stand  that  "the  spirit- 
ual peace  to  which  Christ  refers,  however,  is  a  state  of 
mind,  not  of  politics. ' '  Christian  pacifism  is  an  effort 
to  define  the  indefinable. 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      333 

"Under  what  circumstances  may  I  use  force  to  pro- 
tect the  oppressed  or  to  prevent  some  profanation? 
God  knows ;  but  there  are  times  when  I  must.  If  this  be 
not  Christian  doctrine,  then  Christianity,  or  its  inter- 
preters, are  in  favour  of  suppressing  a  divine  impulse. 
And  the  suppressing  of  this  impulse  leads  to  a  senti- 
mental attitude  toward  the  value  of  life  and  property 
which  is  at  odds  with  Christ's  whole  conduct.  I  can 
not  see  that  he  valued  his  own  life  or  that  of  others  ex- 
cept as  a  means  of  spreading  the  truth  which  he  taught. 
For  this  reason  he  heals  the  sick,  for  this  reason  he 
advises  men  to  lose  their  lives  that  they  may  save  them. 
For  this  reason  his  example  has  always  made  men  dis- 
regard death.  Death  is  a  trifle.  ..." 
Or,  as  Maeterlinck  has  so  well  expressed  it :  * 
"Nowadays,  everything  is  changed;  and  death  itself 
is  no  longer  what  it  was.  Formerly,  you  looked  it  in 
the  face,  you  knew  whence  it  came  and  who  sent  it  to 
you.  It  had  a  dreadful  aspect,  but  one  that  remained 
human.  Its  ways  were  not  unknown:  its  long  spells 
of  sleep,  its  brief  awakenings,  its  bad  days  and  dan- 
gerous hours.  At  present,  to  all  these  horrors  it  adds 
the  great,  intolerable  fear  of  mystery.  It  no  longer 
has  any  aspect,  no  longer  has  habits  or  spells  of  sleep 
and  it  is  never  still.  It  is  always  ready,  always  on 
the  watch,  everywhere  present,  scattered,  intangible, 
and  dense,  stealthy  and  cowardly,  diffuse,  all-encom- 
passing, innumerous,  looming  at  every  point  of  the 
horizon,  rising  from  the  waters  and  falling  from  the 
sky,  indefatigable,  inevitable,  filling  the  whole  of  space 
and  time  for  days,  weeks  and  months  without  a  min- 
ute's lull,  without  a  second's  intermission.  Men  live, 
move  arid  sleep  in  the  meshes  of  its  fatal  web.  They 

*  The  Light  Beyond,  pp.  217-218. 


334  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

know  that  the  least  step  to  the  right  or  left,  a  head 
bowed  or  lifted,  a  body  bent  or  upright,  is  seen  by  its 
eyes  and  draws  its  thunder. 

* '  Hitherto  we  had  no  example  of  this  preponderance 
of  the  destructive  forces.  We  should  never  have  be- 
lieved that  man's  nerves  could  resist  so  great  a  trial. 
The  nerves  of  the  bravest  man  are  tempered  to  face 
death  for  the  space  of  a  second,  but  not  to  live  in  the 
hourly  expectation  of  death  and  nothing  else.  Hero- 
ism was  once  a  sharp  and  rugged  peak,  reached  for  a 
moment  but  quitted  forthwith,  for  mountain-peaks  are 
not  inhabitable.  Today  it  is  a  boundless  plain,  as  un- 
inhabitable as  the  peaks ;  but  we  are  not  permitted  to 
descend  from  it.  And  so,  at  the  very  moment  when  man 
appeared  most  exhausted  and  enervated  by  the  com- 
forts and  vices  of  civilization,  at  the  moment  when  he 
was  happiest  and  therefore  most  selfish,  when,  possess- 
ing the  minimum  of  faith  and  vainly  seeking  a  new 
ideal,  he  seemed  less  capable  of  sacrificing  himself  for 
an  idea  of  any  kind,  he  finds  himself  suddenly  confront- 
ed with  an  unprecedented  danger,  which  is  almost  cer- 
tain that  the  most  heroic  nations  of  history  would  not 
have  faced  nor  even  dreamed  of  facing,  whereas  he 
does  not  even  dream  that  it  is  possible  to  do  aught  but 
face  it." 

This  thought — that  death  is  nothing — an  incident- 
seems,  perhaps  naturally  enough,  to  strike  all  men  at 
the  front  at  one  time  or  another,  possibly  because  death 
is  all  about  them,  and  they  have  grown  familiar  with 
his  face.  They  know  him  for  what  he  is — and  they  no 
longer  fear  him.  As  a  soldier  wrote  not  long  since  to 
a  friend  of  his,  in  response  to  a  letter  of  sympathy  and 
encouragement : — 

"Tell  M.,"  he  wrote,  "that  if  death  strikes  the  best, 


SPIEITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      335 

it  is  not  unjust.  The  less  noble  who  survive  will  be 
made  better.  Let  her  accept  the  sacrifice,  and  know 
that  it  is  not  made  in  vain.  You  do  not  know  what  a 
lesson  the  dead  teach.  I  know  it.  In  the  spectacle  of 
the  soldier  who  falls  there  is  a  lesson  of  nobility  and 
immortality  which  steels  us,  and  by  which  we  ought  to 
wish  those  dear  to  us  to  profit.  I  know  because  I  have 
seen  how  the  soldier  whose  leader  has  fallen  is  trans- 
figured with  heroism. 

''Mothers  have  overwhelming  agonies  to  suffer  in 
this  war;  but  be  of  good  cheer,  nothing  here  is  lost. 
What  passes  one's  understanding — and  yet,  after  all, 
it  is  natural  enough — is  that  civilians  are  able  to  con- 
tinue their  normal  existence  while  we  are  in  torment. 

"Let  us  always,  and  in  every  condition,  have  faith 
in  God.  Like  you,  I  feel  we  can  only  worship  Him  in 
spirit.  Like  you,  I  feel  we  ought  to  avoid  every  kind  of 
pride  which  offends  the  beliefs  of  others.  One  conso- 
lation lies  above  the  super-humanly  clear  conviction 
that  the  divine  and  immortal  energy  which  acts  in  one 
race,  so  far  from  being  weakened,  is  exalted  and  ren- 
dered infinitely  more  potent  by  these  turmoils. 

"Blessed  is  he  who  will  hear  the  hymn  of  peace,  but 
blessed  already  is  he  who  divines  it  in  the  tumult.  And 
what  does  it  matter  if  this  magnificent  vision  should  be 
realized  when  the  prophet  has  gone  ?  He  who  has  fore- 
known its  coming  has  gleaned  abundance  of  joy  on 
earth. 

"If  there  be  one  thing  absolute  in  the  realm  of  hu- 
man sensation  it  is  suffering.  It  is  the  instrument  that 
clears  the  soul's  path  to  the  Absolute. 

' '  Human  separations  mean  little ;  that  which  is  really 
ourselves  is  the  ardour  of  the  soul. 

' '  Everything  here  combines  to  impart  peace  of  heart 


336  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

— the  beauty  of  the  wood  in  which  we  are  living,  and 
the  want  of  intellectual  complications.  It  is  paradoxi- 
cal, as  you  say,  and  yet  the  best  moments  of  my  inner 
life  are  now  being  passed. 

"One  word  only — we  are  in  the  hands  of  God! 
Never,  never,  did  we  so  sorely  need  steadfastness  and 
confidence.  Death  rages,  but  does  not  reign.  Life  is 
still  noble.  Truly, — 

"God's  arms  are  around  the  undying  dead 
Who  serve  Him.    Torment  seeks  in  vain 

To  touch  them,  though  because  they  bled 
Fools  take  their  passing  for  a  pain." 

This  fact — that  death  ennobles  and  glorifies,  and  that 
the  whole  human  race  seems  to  be  spiritually  lifted  up 
by  the  sacrifices  made — which  will  not  have  been  made 
in  vain — is  clearly  perceived  by  Maeterlinck,  who,  with 
the  true  poet's  vision,  when  writing  of  the  war,  said  :— 

"It  was  so  great  a  trial  that  we  dared  not,  before 
this  war,  have  contemplated  it.  The  future  of  the  hu- 
man race  was  at  stake;  and  the  magnificent  response 
that  comes  to  us  from  every  side  reassures  us  fully 
as  to  the  issue  of  other  struggles,  more  formidable 
still,  which  no  doubt  await  us  when  it  will  be  a  ques- 
tion no  longer  of  fighting  our  fellow-men,  but  rather  of 
facing  the  more  powerful  and  cruel  of  the  great  mys- 
terious enemies  that  nature  holds  in  reserve  against 
us.  If  it  be  true,  as  I  believe,  that  humanity  is  worth 
just  as  much  as  the  sum  total  of  latent  heroism  which 
it  contains,  then  we  may  declare  that  humanity  was 
never  stronger  nor  more  exemplary  than  now,  and  that 
it  is  this  moment  reaching  one  of  its  highest  points  and 
capable  of  braving  everything  and  hoping  everything. 
And  it  is  for  this  reason  that,  despite  our  present  sad- 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      337 

ness,  we  are  entitled  to  congratulate  ourselves  and  re- 
joice."* 

The  increasingly  religious  or  spiritual  feelings 
which  are  sweeping  over  the  soldiers  at  the  front  have 
been  testified  to  by  many  observers,  and  may  even  be 
found  in  numerous  communications  and  "cases"  which 
have  been  received  from  those  in  the  trenches.  Here, 
for  example,  is  a  statement  made  by  a  French  soldier, 
who  evidently  believes  that  some  divine  providence 
has  protected  him  from  harm,  and  that  his  life  has 
been  miraculously  saved  on  several  occasions.  He 
writes,  concerning  his  own  experiences: 

Here  is  the  testimony  afforded  by  a  few  "cases" 
which  took  place  while  I  was  at  the  front.  When  war 
broke  out,  I  started  on  the  second  day  of  the  mobiliza- 
tion to  join  up  with  the  sixty-ninth  light  infantry  regi- 
ment. I  was  full  of  trust,  knowing  that  in  the  kingdom 
of  God  there  was  no  war  and  that  no  evil  could  touch 
me.  One  day  I  was  told  off  to  patrol  duty  with  three  of 
my  comrades.  We  were  to  reconnoitre  a  farm,  and 
were  going  under  cover  of  a  corn  field,  when  suddenly 
the  enemy  hidden  in  a  ravine  fired  on  us.  We  were  a 
few  metres  from  them,  and  my  companions  thought 
they  were  done  for,  but  I  remained  calm,  having  the 
ninety-first  psalm  always  present  in  my  thought.  We 
lay  flat  in  the  corn,  and  while  the  balls  spattered  all 
around  us  I  declared  the  truth,  and  we  came  safely 
through  this  terrible  experience. 

During  the  retreat  we  were  sent  into  the  department 
of  the  Oise  to  stop  the  German  advance  on  Paris. 
When  at  L we  were  ordered  to  hold  on  as  long  as 

*  The  Light  Beyond,  pp.  222-23. 


338  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WA& 

possible;  and  we  defended  the  position  all  day  long 
under  terrible  artillery  fire.  When  we  had  to  retire, 
it  was  too  late,  for  we  were  surrounded  on  all  sides. 
We  were  much  afraid  that  the  whole  regiment  would 
be  captured,  but  God  was  watching  over  us,  and  by 
what  seemed  a  miracle  we  succeeded  in  getting  out  of 
the  circle  surrounding  us.  Then  I  heard  several  of  my 
comrades  say,  "It  is  incredible;  there  must  be  some 
one  or  something  protecting  our  regiment. ' ' 

My  best  demonstration  took  place  during  the  fa- 
mous battle  of  the  Marne.  We  were  at  a  place  on  the 

road  to  M and  were  ordered  to  go  toward  another 

place,  which  was  then  occupied  by  the  enemy.  But 
we  had  to  go  a  distance  of  four  kilometres  in  open 
country,  exposed  to  the  fire  of  the  enemy's  great  how- 
itzers. We  had  to  crawl  all  the  way,  on  our  stomachs. 
All  of  a  sudden  a  shell  fell  and  burst  just  where  my 
squad  was.  Terrible  cries  were  heard,  and  several  of 
my  comrades  were  wounded,  while  others  were  killed, 
and  I  was  thrown  to  the  other  side  of  the  road  without 
a  scratch,  not  knowing  how  it  ever  happened. 

The  next  day  we  had  to  resist  the  enemy  for  twelve 
consecutive  hours  under  the  fire  of  artillery,  for  the 
order  was  that  we  should  be  killed  rather  than  re- 
treat; no  shelter  was  available,  and  what  a  massacre 
it  was!  With  this  passage  of  the  ninety-first  psalm 
always  before  my  thought :  *  *  There  shall  no  evil  be- 
fall thee,  neither  shall  any  plague  come  nigh  thy  dwell- 
ing, ' '  I  worked  without  ceasing.  A  piece  of  shell  struck 
me  near  the  heart,  but  when  it  struck  it  had  lost  all 
its  force  and  had  no  power  to  hurt  me. 

Before  closing,  I  will  add  a  more  recent  experience 
which  occurred  at  the  time  of  the  battle  of  the  Somme. 
One  of  my  comrades  and  I  went  to  visit  the  cemetery 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      339 

of  the  little  village  where  we  were  staying,  to  see  if 
among  the  unfortunate  soldiers  lying  there,  there  was 
not  one  whom  we  knew.  After  a  few  moments  I  said 
to  my  friend:  "This  is  not  very  cheerful;  let  us  go 
away.  I  do  not  care  to  stay  here  any  longer."  We 
left  the  place,  and  we  had  not  been  gone  five  minutes, 
when  a  shell  fell  into  the  cemetery  just  where  we  had 
been  standing,  demolishing  all  the  graves  and  making 
an  enormous  hole.  Again  I  recognized  God's  protec- 
tion. 

VICTOR  BLONDIS,  Boulogne  sur  Seine,  France. 

Here  is  another  instance,  published  in  an  Australian 
paper : — 

The  Warning  Voice 

Captain  Wm.  McKenzie,  one  of  the  Salvation  Army 
chaplains  with  the  Australian  Forces,  who  was  re- 
cently decorated  by  the  King  with  the  Military  Cross, 
attributes  his  many  hairbreadth  escapes  to  what  he 
regards  as  a  Divine  Voice  prompting  him  in  moments 
of  extreme  danger.  On  one  occasion,  according  to  an 
English  contemporary,  he  was  burying  single-handed 
the  bodies  of  a  number  of  men.  While  thus  engaged, 
he  found  it  necessary  to  go  on  to  a  ridge  in  full  view 
of  the  enemy  from  two  points,  and  they  began  sending 
over  "whizzbangs"  and  later  big  shells  close  to  him. 

"I  was  burying  the  seventh  body,  when  I  heard  a 
voice  say,  '  Get  away  from  here  quickly ! '  Not  having 
quite  finished,  I  worked  like  a  fury,  but  had  only  man- 
aged three  more  spadefuls  when  again  the  voice  said, 
'Run  at  once.'  Then  I  made  off,  but  had  got  away 
only  some  twenty-five  yards  when  a  big  explosive  shell 
landed  directly  on  the  spot  where  I  had  been  standing. 


340  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

...  I  could  give  at  least  six  instances  within  a  single 
week  where  prompt  attention  to  this  unseen  voice  saved 
me  from  big  shells." 

Surprising  natural  phenomena  are  frequently  at- 
tributed, by  soldiers  at  the  front,  to  supernatural 
causes,  and  omens  seen  in  them  of  possible  victory  or 
defeat.  Thus,  on  the  Western  front,  numbers  of  sol- 
diers testified  that  they  had  seen  a  Cross  in  the  sky, 
glowing  and  of  gigantic  size,  just  before  the  Battle  of 
the  Somme.  On  another  occasion,  a  vision  of  Christ 
was  supposedly  seen  in  the  clouds,  accompanied  by 
streamers  of  light.  The  following  incident  comes  to  us 
from  the  Eussian  front,  as  having  occurred  early  in 
the  war  :— 

"When  the  Russian  Armies  were  entrenched  near 
Augustovo  in  the  early  autumn  of  1914,  shortly  before 
midnight  one  night  a  sentry  rushed  into  the  officers' 
headquarters  to  summon  his  captain.  'I  have  seen 
something  wonderful  in  the  sky,'  he  said;  ' it  is  a  sign 
from  heaven  of  victory,  I  feel  sure.  All  the  men  are 
out  there  kneeling  on  the  ground  in  prayer, — full  of 
wonder  at  the  miracle  of  the  vision. ' 

"The  officer  followed  the  man,  and  saw  that  it  was 
indeed  as  he  had  said.  At  one  point  the  sky  was  daz- 
zlingly  illuminated,  and  outlined  against  its  shining 
brightness,  the  figure  of  the  Virgin,  holding  the  Christ 
Child  in  her  arms,  could  be  seen.  Lost  in  wonder,  that 
great  company  of  awestruck  men  gazed  at  the  vision 
until  by  degrees  it  faded  away,  and  there  in  its  place, 
as  though  outlined  in  fire,  was  the  sign  of  the  Cross. 

"This  vision  proved  the  forerunner  of  one  of  the 
chief  Russian  victories  in  the  early  part  of  the  war.  Its 
fame  has  spread  all  over  Russia.  From  the  highest  to 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      341 

the  lowest  in  the  land  all  place  firm  credence  in  the 
wonderful  vision  of  Augustovo,  as  it  is  called  from  the 
battle  which  took  place  near  that  spot  the  next  day.'* 
The  majority  of  the  Russian  soldiers  are,  of  course, 
ignorant  and  illiterate  men,  superstitious  and  alto- 
gether ignorant  of  the  causes  of  such  natural  phe- 
nomena; and  no  objectivity  can  be  attached  to  such 
visions.  At  the  same  time  they  show  us  the  attitude 
of  mind  of  many  of  the  soldiers — very  different  from 
the  coarse  materialism  which  we  should  have  expected 
to  find, — living  the  life  they  do.  That  this  changed 
attitude  does  have  an  effect  upon  the  soldiers  is  seen 
by  the  following  incident,  in  which  the  religious  faith 
of  the  patient  effected  his  permanent  cure. 

A  Soldier's  Vision  and  Its  Sequel 

"The  Dublin  correspondent  of  the  London  Star  re- 
ports that  much  discussion  is  being  created  in  that  city 
by  the  remarkable  story  of  a  soldier  whose  speech  and 
hearing  were  restored  to  him  after  he  had  seen  a  vision 
of  the  nun  known  as  'The  Little  Flower': — 

"The  soldier  is  Stephen  Conroy,  aged  fifty-four,  a 
private  in  the  2nd  Leinster  Regiment.  As  a  result  of 
shell-shock  he  was  struck  deaf  and  dumb  six  months 
ago.  His  case,  because  of  the  gravity  of  the  functional 
disorder  and  the  age  of  the  patient,  was  regarded  as 
hopeless.  He  was  sent  from  hospital  to  hospital,  and 
finally  came  under  the  care  of  the  nuns  in  Jervis-street 
Hospital  in  this  city. 

"Conroy  is  a  deeply  religious  man,  and  he  adopted 
the  suggestion  that  he  should  carry  out  the  devotion 
to  'The  Little  Flower.'  He  states  that  on  Sunday 
morning  at  about  2.30,  a  white  form  appeared  at  his 


342  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAK 

bedside  'all  dazzling  light  and  a  wreath  of  flowers  on 
her  head,  and  having  said  something  in  plain  Eng- 
lish,' which  he  hopes  to  recall,  counselled  him  to  say 
certain  prayers  morning  and  evening,  and  vanished. 

"Then  the  night  nurse,  to  her  amazement,  was  called 
by  the  excited  patient,  who  told  her  what  he  had  seen. ' ' 

It  does  not  concern  us  now  whether  the  inner  char- 
acter of  this  experience  was  objective  or  subjective— 
an  actuality,  or  merely  the  result  of  faith.  What  does 
concern  us  is  that  a  cure  was  actually  effected,  in  this 
case;  and  that  it  was  the  condition  or  attitude  of  the 
soldier's  mind  which  brought  it  about. 

The  following  account,  appearing  in  the  Interna- 
tional Psychic  Gazette  for  October,  1917,  narrates  a 
vision  of  a  semi-religious  nature,  seen  by  a  soldier  at 
the  front.  It  refers  to  the  well-known  apparition  of  :— 

The  Comrade  in  White 

"After  having  read  of  'The  Comrade  in  White,' 
which  is  a  name  given  to  a  mysterious  stranger  said  to 
frequently  appear  on  the  battlefields  in  Europe,  and  to 
,  assist  wounded  soldiers,  I  had  a  strong  desire  to  know 
who  that  helper  really  was.  I  could  not  bring  my  mind 
to  think  he  was  the  Master  Jesus ;  I  thought  he  must 
be  one  of  the  many  astral  helpers  who  have  laboured  on 
the  Borderland  during  the  war,  as  I  myself  can  testify. 
After  some  months  the  thought  passed  out  of  my  mind, 
but  my  desire,  'the  souPs  sincere  desire,'  was  yet 
to  be  gratified,  in  a  manner  beyond  my  most  sanguine 
expectations. 

"One  evening  recently,  I  felt  as  though  I  were  being 
raised  to  a  great  height,  and  was  about  to  stand  in  the 
presence  of  a  powerful,  majestic  Being.  I  then  dis- 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      343 

stinctly  heard  clairaudiently  the  following  words: — 
'In  such  an  hour  as  ye  think  not,  the  Son  of  Man 
cometh. '  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  so-called  Death 
was  near,  that  some  one  was  about  to  pass  over,  and 
wandered  away  from  the  house  on  to  the  lawn,  at- 
tracted by  the  marvellous  splendour  of  the  starry, 
moonlight  night.  While  gazing  at  the  heavens  I  felt 
as  though  some  one  touched  me,  and  found  myself 
face  to  face  with  the  'Comrade  in  White.'  He  ap- 
peared to  possess  a  physical  body  like  that  of  any  other 
man,  but  His  vibrations  were  far  more  powerful  than 
those  of  any  other  human  being.  With  very  deep  sym- 
pathy He  looked  intently  at  me  and  said,  'I  am  the 
Master  Jesus,  the  Comrade  in  White.'  Then  He  van- 
ished as  suddenly  as  He  had  appeared,  and  I  was  left 
alone  to  ponder  over  this  glorious  experience,  and  my 
soul  was  filled  with  a  song  of  thanksgiving,  when  I 
realized  that  the  Master  Jesus  had  deemed  me  worthy 
of  such  a  visitation." 

Many  religious  visions  and  experiences  of  a  like  na~ 
ture  could  be  given — did  space  permit.  But  we  will 
limit  ourselves  to  one  other  case  of  this  nature. 

"The  Angels  of  Mons" 

Peculiarly  conflicting  evidence  has  been  presented  in 
the  case  of  a  semi-religious  vision  which  is  said  to 
have  been  seen  by  numbers  of  soldiers  on  the  historic 
retreat  from  Mons — I  refer  to  the  now-famous  "Angels 
of  Mons."  The  main  outlines  of  this  incident  are 
doubtless  too  well  known  to  need  more  than  the  brief- 
est mention.  At  the  very  moment  when  the  German 
hordes  seemed  about  to  overwhelm  the  British  Army, 


344  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

phantom  warriors  (so  the  story  goes)  intervened— 
English  bowmen  from  the  field  of  Agincourt — and  kept 
the  Germans  at  bay  until  the  main  army  succeeded  in 
making  good  its  escape.  Such  was  the  report,  circu- 
lated at  the  time. 

No  sooner  had  this  account  been  spread  than  Mr. 
Arthur  Machen,  a  well-known  English  writer,  came 
forward,  and  asserted  that  he  had  invented  the  whole 
tale,  in  his  story  "The  Bowmen,"  which  was  then  pub- 
lished in  book  form.  The  whole  story,  he  claimed, 
originated  in  his  imagination.  As  opposed  to  this, 
however,  several  soldiers  now  came  forward,  and  as- 
serted that  they  had  actually  seen  the  phantom  army 
referred  to,  or  something  very  like  it ;  and  Mr.  Harold 
Begbie  published  a  book,  On  the  Side  of  the  Angels,  in 
which  he  produced  quite  a  volume  of  evidence,  varying 
in  excellence  from  first-hand  reports  to  mere  hearsay ; 
and  Mr.  Ralph  Shirley,  the  editor  of  the  Occult  Review, 
also  published  a  booklet,  The  Angel  Warriors  of  Mons, 
containing  additional  evidence. 

The  case  is  assuredly  puzzling.  I  do  not  for  one 
moment  pretend  to  say  that  phantom  bowmen  actually 
took  part  in  this  historical  battle,  or  that  they  saved 
the  British  army  from  destruction — as  has  been  as- 
serted in  the  past ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  appears  to 
me  that  the  evidence  which  was  presented  at  the  time 
cannot  be  brushed  aside  as  easily  as  it  has  been  in  cer- 
tain quarters,  as  unworthy  of  serious  consideration. 
Rather,  we  have  here,  it  seems  to  me,  on  any  theory,  a 
remarkably  interesting  psychological  problem, — one 
which  is  well  worthy  of  being  recorded  and  being 
studied, — at  least  from  that  point-of-view.  Partly  be- 
cause of  this,  and  partly  because  it  throws  so  interest- 
ing a  light  upon  the  early  days  of  the  war,  I  repro- 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      345 

duce  here,  by  kind  permission,  a  portion  of  an  article 
by  Miss  Phyllis  Campbell,  published  in  the  Occult  Re- 
view, September,  1915.  It  runs  as  follows : — 

The  torrent  of  blistered,  bleeding,  stony-eyed  Bel- 
gian refugees  which  had  poured  through  our  hands 
unceasingly,  night  and  day,  for  the  first  hot  breathless 
weeks  of  last  August,  was  suddenly  stemmed  by  the 
wounded.  The  miseries  of  those  first  wounded  can- 
not ever  be  written.  To  those  who  tended  them  they 
brought  like  misery,  for,  individually  and  in  the  mass, 
they  expressed  a  conviction  of  swiftly  approaching  dis- 
aster. They  bore  their  sufferings  with  unexampled 
heroism ;  but  their  very  dumbness  suggested  the  hope- 
less silence  of  defeat.  When  they  spoke  at  all,  they 
spoke,  if  they  were  French,  of  "soixante-dix";  if  they 
were  British  they  said  heavily  they  were  "up  against 
it  now."  One  man,  a  Highlander,  opened  his  dying 
eyes  and  urged  us  to^fly  while  there  was  time.  "Get 
awa',  lassie,"  he  whispered.  "Get  awa'!  They  Ger- 
mans is  no  men ;  they  're  devils.  All  Hell  is  open  now. ' ' 

Briefly,  that  is  what  all  the  wounded  thought — what 
they  all  sought  to  convey  to  us,  and  as  the  days  dragged 
on  and  the  bloody  toll  increased,  the  members  of  the 
ambulance  diminished.  They,  or  their  fathers  and 
mothers,  remembered  "  soixante-dix, "  and  those  who 
could  go  went;  and  so  our  work  became  harder,  and 
the  wounded  poured  in  and  in,  till  the  expectation  of 
quick  victory  for  the  Allies  faded,  and  though  the  small 
band  of  us  remaining  disdained  to  acknowledge  fear, 
yet  we  also  were  instructed  by  the  commandant  to  pre- 
pare for  retreat,  taking  the  wounded  with  us.  Then 
came  the  torrid  days  of  Mons,  and  suddenly  a  change 
in  the  wounded,  utterly  unaccountable.  The  French, 
who  had  tolerantly  accepted  badges  and  medals  of  the 


346  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

saints  from  the  Catholics  of  our  post,  now  eagerly 
asked  for  them,  and  were  profusely  grateful  for  "holy 
pictures "  —those  little  prints  of  saints  and  angels  so 
common  in  all  Catholic  communities.  But  what  puzzled 
the  post  was  that  these  men,  without  a  solitary  excep- 
tion, demanded  invariably,  "St.  Michael"  or  "Joan 
of  Arc." 

Also,  these  men,  in  spite  of  their  horrible  wounds 
and  great  weakness  from  loss  of  blood,  were  in  a  state 
of  singular  exaltation.  We  thought  at  first  that  some 
of  them  had  been  supplied  with  wine,  but  that  was 
clearly  impossible,  as  our  post  was  the  first  stop,  and 
the  trains  came  right  through  from  the  clearing  sta- 
tion, without  attention  of  any  sort,  as  the  fighting  was 
then  at  its  fiercest. 

This  curious  mental  condition  in  the  wounded  con- 
tinued during  the  long  retreat  on  Paris.  Many  of  the 
wounded  died  in  our  hands,  but  the  living  no  longer 
urged  us  to  fly;  they  "died  in,  hope,"  as  if  they  were 
mentally  visioning  victory,  where  their  immediate  fore- 
runners had  only  seen  defeat. 

I  tremble,  now  that  it  is  safely  past,  to  look  back  on 
the  terrible  week  that  brought  the  Allies  to  Vitry-le- 
Frangois.  We  had  not  had  our  clothes  off  for  the 
whole  of  that  week,  because  no  sooner  had  we  reached 
home,  too  weary  to  undress,  or  to  eat,  and  fallen  on  our 
beds,  than  the  "chug-chug"  of  the  commandant's  car 
would  sound  into  the  silence  of  the  deserted  street,  and 
the  horn  would  imperatively  summon  us  back  to  duty,— 
because,  in  addition  to  our  duties,  as  ambulancier 
auxiliare,  we  were  interpreters  to  the  post,  now  at  this 
moment  diminished  to  half  a  dozen. 

Returning  at  4.30  in  the  morning,  we  stood  on  the 
end  of  the  platform,  watching  the  train  crawl  through 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      347 

the  blue-green  of  the  forest  into  the  clearing,  and  draw 
up  with  the  first  wounded  from  Vitry-le-Franc.ois.  It 
was  packed  with  dead  and  dying  and  badly  wounded. 
For  a  time  we  forgot  our  weariness  in  a  race  against 
time,  removing  the  dead  and  dying,  and  attending  to 
those  in  need.  I  was  bandaging  a  man's  shattered  arm 
with  the  majeur  instructing  me,  while  he  stitched  a 

horrible  gap  in  his  head,  when  Madame  d'A ,  the 

heroic  President  of  the  post,  came  and  replaced  me. 
"There  is  an  English  in  the  fifth  wagon,"  she  said. 
"He  demands  a  something — I  think  a  holy  picture." 
The  idea  of  an  English  soldier  demanding  a  holy  pic- 
ture struck  me,  even  in  that  atmosphere  of  blood  and 
misery,  as  something  to  smile  at,  but  I  hurried  away. 
"The  English"  was  a  Lancashire  Fusilier.  He  was 
propped  in  a  corner,  his  left  arm  tied  up  in  a  peasant 
woman's  head  'kerchief,  and  his  head  newly  bandaged. 
He  should  have  been  in  a  state  of  collapse  from  loss 
of  blood,  for  his  tattered  uniform  was  soaked  and  caked 
in  blood,  and  his  face  paper-white  under  the  dirt  of 
conflict.  He  looked  at  me  with  bright  courageous  eyes 
and  asked  for  a  picture  or  a  medal  (he  didn't  care 
which)  of  St.  George.  I  asked  if  he  was  a  Catholic. 
"No,"  he  was  a  Wesleyan  Methodist  (I  hope  I  have  it 
right),  and  he  wanted  a  picture,  or  a  medal  of  St. 
George,  because  he  had  seen  him  on  a  white  horse, 
leading  the  British  at  Vitry-le-FranQois,  when  the  Al- 
lies turned. 

There  was  an  R.  F.  A.  man,  wounded  in  the  leg,  sit- 
ting beside  him  on  the  floor ;  he  saw  my  look  of  amaze- 
ment, and  hastened  in.  "It's  true,  Sister,"  he  said. 
"We  all  saw  it.  First  there  was  a  sort  of  a  yellowish 
mist  like,  sort  of  risin'  before  the  Germans  as  they 
come  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  come  on  like  a  solid  wall 


348  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

they  did — springing  out  of  the  earth  just  solid — no 
end  to  'em.  I  just  give  up.  No  use  fighting  the  whole 
German  race,  thinks  I;  it's  all  up  with  us.  The  next 
minute  comes  this  funny  cloud  of  light,  and  when  it 
clears  off  there 's  a  tall  man  with  yellow  hair  in  golden 
armour,  on  a  white  horse,  holding  his  sword  up,  and  his 
mouth  open  as  if  he  was  saying,  'Come  on,  boys,  I'll 
put  the  kybosh  on  the  devils.'  Sort  of  'This  is  my 
picnic'  expression.  Then,  before  you  could  say  jack- 
knife,  the  Germans  had  turned,  and  we  were  after  them, 
fighting  like  ninety.  We  had  a  few  scores  to  settle, 
Sister,  and  we  fair  settled  them!" 

''Where  was  this?"  I  asked.  But  neither  of  them 
could  tell.  They  had  marched,  fighting  a  rearguard 
action,  from  Mons,  till  St.  George  had  appeared 
through  the  haze  of  light,  and  turned  the  Germans. 
They  both  knew  it  was  St.  George.  Hadn't  they  seen 
him  with  his  sword  on  every  "quid"  they'd  ever  had? 
The  Frenchies  had  seen  him,  too,  ask  them;  but  they 
said  it  was  St.  Michael. 

The  French  wounded  were  again  in  that  curiously 
exalted  condition  we  had  remarked  before — only  more 
so — a  sort  of  self-contained  rapture  of  happiness— 
"Yes"  it  was  quite  true.  The  Boches  were  in  full  re- 
treat, and  the  Allies  were  being  led  to  victory  by  St. 
Michael  and  Joan  of  Arc. 

"As  for  petite  Jeanne  d'Arc,"  said  one  soldier,  "I 
know  her  well,  for  I  am  of  Domremy.  I  saw  her  bran- 
dishing her  sword  and  crying,  'Turn!  Turn!  Ad- 
vance ! ' '  Yes,  he  knew  others  had  seen  the  Archangel, 
but  little  Joan  of  Arc  was  good  enough  for  him.  He 
had  fought  with  the  English  from  Mons — and  little 
Joan  of  Arc  had  defeated  the  English — par  exemple' 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      349 

Now  she  was  leading  them.  There  was  a  combination 
for  you !  No  wonder  the  Boches  fled  down  hill. 

After  the  train  crawled  out,  and  we  had  time  to 
speak,  the  President  drew  me  aside,  and  confided  to  me, 
that  a  wounded  officer  of  high  rank  had  told  her  he  had 
seen  St.  Michael  at  Vitry-le-FranQois.  He  was  quite 
close  to  the  Blessed  Visitant  and  there  could  be  no 
doubt  on  the  subject.  At  first  he  thought  he  was  to 
die,  and,  as  he  had  been  a  violent  Agnostic  and  ma- 
terialist all  his  life,  that  this  was  a  warning  to  him  to 
make  swift  repentance  in  preparation  for  judgment. 
Soon,  however,  he  saw  that,  so  far  from  requiring  his 
life,  God  had  sent  assistance  in  the  fight,  and  that  so 
clearly  was  on  the  side  of  the  Allies,  that  the  Germans 
must  needs  therefore  be  evil,  and  of  the  Devil. 

I  then  told  Madame  d'A the  story  of  the  two 

British  soldiers  who  wanted  pictures  of  St.  George, 
and  we  decided  to  compare  notes  with  the  others.  Only 
one  of  us  had  not  heafd  the  tale  of  the  Angelic  Lead- 
ers, and  she  had  been  detailed  by  the  majeur  to  guard 
three  wounded  Germans,  one  of  whom  had  died  of 
tetanus,  the  other  two  had  gangrene.  Her  duty  was 
to  stand  some  paces  off  and  prevent  any  one  touching 
them,  so  she  had  consequently  no  opportunity  of  con- 
versation. 

On  discussing  the  matter  between  the  trains  of 
wounded,  we  remarked:  First,  that  the  French  sol- 
diers of  all  ranks  had  seen  two  well-known  saints- 
Joan  of  Arc — to  whom  many  of  those  delirious  with 
the  torrid  heat  and  loss  of  blood  were  praying — that 
she  was  in  armour,  bareheaded,  riding  a  white  horse, 
and  calling  "Advance,"  while  she  brandished  her 
sword  high  in  the  air;  and  St.  Michael  the  Archangel, 
clad  in  golden  armour,  bareheaded,  riding  a  white 


350  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAK 

horse,  and  flourishing  his  sword,  while  he  shouted 
"Victory!"  Second,  the  British  had  seen  St.  George, 
in  golden  armour,  bareheaded,  riding  a  white  horse 
and  crying  while  he  held  up  his  sword,  "Come  on!" 

There  were  individual  discrepancies,  naturally,  but 
in  the  main  the  story  was  the  same,  seen  in  cold  blood 
at  a  moment  of  despair,  and  continued  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  victory.  It  was  always  related  quietly  and 
sanely,  in  a  matter-of-fact  fashion,  as  if  it  were  a  usual 
and  quite  expected  occurrence  for  the  lords  of  heaven 
to  lead  the  hosts  of  earth.  Of  one  thing  all  were  as- 
sured— that  the  Germans  represented  the  powers  of 
evil,  and  that  so  doubtfully  did  victory  hang  in  the  bal- 
ance, that  the  powers  of  good  found  it  necessary  to 
fight  hand  in  hand  and  foot  to  foot  with  the  Allies, 
lest  the  whole  world  be  lost. 

That  night  we  heard  the  tale  again,  from  the  lips 
of  a  priest  this  time,  two  officers,  and  three  men  of 
the  Irish  Guard.  These  three  men  were  mortally 
wounded,  they  asked  for  the  Sacrament  before  death, 
and  before  dying  told  the  same  story  to  the  old  abbe 
who  confessed  them. 

That  was  our  last  night  with  the  ambulance  at  the 
post,  we  were  now  moved  on  to  the  hospital,  and  took 
our  regular  work  as  ambulancier.  There  we  had  time 
to  hear  more,  and  the  men  told  us  in  fragments  of  the 
long  retreat  from  Mons,  fighting  all  the  way  like  Tro- 
jans, marching  night  and  day,  and  day  and  night,  of 
the  men  falling  in  the  ranks  and  being  kicked  to  their 
feet  by  the  officers — of  the  officers  falling  off  their  feet 
drunk  with  sleep,  and  being  kicked  and  pushed  to  their 
feet  again  by  the  men — of  men  who  dragged  and  car- 
ried their  officers,  of  officers  who  dragged  and  carried 
their  men — of  horses  falling  dead  in  their  traces,  and 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      351 

of  men  who  harnessed  themselves  in  and  dragged  the 
guns — of  motor  transport  that  drove  itself  with  drivers 
hanging  dead  asleep  over  the  wheels,  or  sitting  with 
wide-open  eyes,  and  dead  hands  steering  the  munitions 
and  food  of  the  retreating  army. 

For  forty-eight  hours  no  food,  no  drink,  under  a 
tropical  sun,  choked  with  dust,  harried  by  shell,  and 
marching,  marching,  marching,  till  even  the  pursuing 
Germans  gave  it  up,  and  at  Vitry-le-Frangois  the  Al- 
lies fell  in  their  tracks  and  slept  for  three  hours — 
horse,  foot  and  guns — while  the  exhausted  pursuers 
slept  behind  them. 

Then  came  the  trumpet  call,  and  each  man  sprang 
to  his  arms  to  find  himself  made  anew.  One  man  said, 
"I  felt  as  if  I  had  just  come  out  of  the  sea  after  a 
swim.  Fit !  just  grand !  I  never  felt  so  fit  in  my  life, 
and  every  man  of  us  the  same.  The  Germans  were 
coming  on  just  the  same  as  ever,  when  suddenly  the 
*  Advance*  sounded,  and  I  saw  the  luminous  mist  and 
the  great  man  on  the  white  horse,  and  I  knew  the 
Boches  would  never  get  Paris,  for  God  was  fighting 
om  our  side.  ..." 

Additional  evidence,  as  to  the  actuality  of  visions 
seen  by  many  of  the  men  at  this  time  was  soon  forth- 
coming. An  officer,  for  example,  who  had  shared  in 
the  historic  Mons  retreat,  reading  what  Mr.  Machen 
had  said  regarding  the  origin  of  these  phenomena, 
wrote  to  the  London  Evening  News,  for  September  14 
(1915),  giving  an  account  of  certain  visions  he  himself 
has  seen — differing,  however,  considerably  from  the 
"historic"  phenomena.  The  letter  was  in  reply  to  a 
statement  made  by  Mr.  Machen  to  the  effect  that : 

"It  is  odd  that  nobody  has  come  forward  to  testify 


352  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

at  first  hand  to  the  most  amazing  event  of  his  life." 
"It  is  this  remark,"  wrote  the  officer  in  question, 
"which  inclines  me  to  write,''  and  he  proceeds  to  tell 
his  own  experiences.  It  appears  from  this  account 
that  on  August  26, 1914,  he  was  fighting  in  the  battle  of 
Le  Cateau.  From  this  sanguinary  engagement  his  di- 
vision retired  in  good  order  and  was  marching  all  the 
night  of  the  26th  and  during  the  27th  with  only  two 
hours'  rest. 

"On  the  night  of  the  27th,"  says  Mr.  Machen's  cor- 
respondent, "I  was  riding  along  in  the  column  with 
two  other  officers.  We  had  been  talking  and  doing  our 
best  to  keep  from  falling  asleep  on  our  horses. 

"As  we  rode  along  I  became  conscious  of  the  fact 
that,  in  the  fields  on  both  sides  of  the  road  along  which 
we  were  marching  I  could  see  a  very  large  body  of 
horsemen.  These  horsemen  had  the  appearance  of 
squadrons  of  cavalry,  and  they  seemed  to  be  riding 
across  the  fields  and  going  in  the  same  direction  as  we 
were  going,  and  keeping  level  with  us. 

"The  night  was  not  very  dark,  and  I  fancied  that 
I  could  see  the  squadron  of  these  cavalrymen  quite 
distinctly. 

"I  did  not  say  a  word  about  it  at  first,  but  I  watched 
them  for  about  twenty  minutes.  The  other  two  offi- 
cers had  stopped  talking. 

"At  last  one  of  them  asked  me  if  I  saw  anything  in 
the  fields.  I  then  told  him  what  I  had  seen.  The  third 
officer  then  confessed  that  he  too  had  been  watching 
these  horsemen  for  the  past  twenty  minutes. 

"So  convinced  were  we  that  they  were  really  cav- 
alry that,  at  the  next  halt,  one  of  the  officers  took  a 
party  of  men  out  to  reconnoitre,  and  found  no  one 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      353 

there.  The  night  then  grew  darker,  and  we  saw  no 
more. 

"The  same  phenomenon  was  seen  by  many  men  in 
our  column.  Of  course,  we  were  all  dog-tired  and  over- 
taxed, but  it  is  an  extraordinary  thing  that  the  same 
phenomenon  should  be  witnessed  by  so  many  people. 

"I  myself  am  absolutely  convinced  that  I  saw  these 
horsemen ;  and  I  feel  sure  that  they  did  not  exist  only 
in  my  imagination.  I  do  not  attempt  to  explain  the 
mystery — I  only  state  facts." 

The  above  evidence,  which  is  obviously  of  consider- 
able importance,  does  not  appear  in  Mr.  Harold  Beg- 
bie's  book  On  the  Side  of  the  Angels,  which  claims  to 
be  a  counterblast  to  Mr.  Machen's  Bowmen,  the  evi- 
dence apparently  having  come  to  light  too  late  for  in- 
sertion. Mr.  Begbie,  however,  gives  a  very  detailed 
account  of  another  first-hand  record, — which  is  per- 
haps,— at  least  up  to  4  the  present  date, — the  most 
important  statement  of  the  kind  with  the  exception  of 
the  Lieut.-Colonel's.  This  is  the  record  of  a  certain 
wounded  soldier,  a  lance-corporal,  who  was  lying,  at 
the  time  the  statement  was  made  public,  at  an  English 
hospital,  and,  in  fact,  was  awaiting  an  operation,  which 
has  since  been  performed.  Though  the  lance-cor- 
poral's name  is  not  given,  it  is  well-known  to  a  number 
of  people  who  have  been  investigating  these  matters, 
and  in  particular  Mr.  Begbie  went  out  of  his  way  to 
have  a  long  interview  with  the  soldier  in  question.  The 
statement  was  first  made  by  him  in  conversation  with 
the  hospital  nurse,  who  in  turn  repeated  it  to  the  Lady 
Superintendent  of  the  Red  Cross, — Miss  M.  Courtney 
Wilson.  This  account  was  first  given  with  no  idea  at 
all  of  its  attracting  public  attention,  but  merely  in  cas- 
ual conversation  with  the  nurse  referred  to,  and  the 


354  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

narrator  was  a  good  deal  surprised  to  learn  of  the 
publicity  that  had  been  given  to  it.  "He  is  a  soldier," 
says  Mr.  Begbie  (quoting  a  friend  of  his  who  went  to 
see  him),  "of  many  years'  service,  with  a  clean  mili- 
tary record.  I  should  take  him  to  be  a  man  of  two  or 
three  and  thirty.  He  spoke  to  me  of  his  vision  in  a 
cool,  calm,  matter-of-fact  way,  as  of  something  he  had 
certainly  seen.  He  made  no  attempt  either  to  theorize 
or  dogmatize  about  it.  His  whole  narrative  was  marked 
by  sincerity."  The  soldier's  verbatim  statement  is 
given  by  Mr.  Begbie,  and  it  may  be  worth  while  repro- 
ducing it  here,  though  it  appears  in  an  abbreviated 
form  in  The  Angel  Warriors  of  Mons. 

"I  was  in  my  battalion  in  the  retreat  from  Mons  on 
or  about  August  28.  The  German  cavalry  were  ex- 
pected to  make  a  charge,  and  we  were  waiting  to  fire 
and  scatter  them  so  as  to  enable  the  French  cavalry 
who  were  on  our  right  to  make  a  dash  forward.  How- 
ever, the  German  aeroplanes  discovered  our  position 
and  we  remained  where  we  were. 

* '  The  weather  was  very  hot  and  clear,  and  between 
eight  and  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  I  was  standing 
with  a  party  of  nine  other  men  on  duty,  and  some  dis- 
tance on  either  side  there  were  parties  of  ten  on  guard. 
Immediately  behind  us  half  of  my  battalion  was  on 
the  edge  of  a  wood  resting.  An  officer  suddenly  came 
up  to  us  in  a  state  of  great  anxiety  and  asked  us  if  we 
had  seen  anything  startling  (the  word  used  was  *  as- 
tonishing'). He  hurried  away  from  my  ten  to  the 
next  party  of  ten.  When  he  had  got  out  of  sight  I, 
who  was  the  non-commissioned  officer  in  charge,  or- 
dered two  men  to  go  forward  out  of  the  way  of  the 
trees  in  order  to  find  out  what  the  officer  meant.  The 
two  men  returned  reporting  that  they  could  see  no 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      355 

sign  of  any  Germans ;  at  that  time  we  thought  that  the 
officer  must  be  expecting  a  surprise  attack. 

"Immediately  afterwards  the  officer  came  back,  and 
taking  me  and  some  others  a  few  yards  away  showed 
us  the  sky.  I  could  see  quite  plainly  in  mid-air  a 
strange  light  which  seemed  to  be  quite  distinctly  out- 
lined and  was  not  a  reflection  of  the  moon,  nor  were 
there  any  clouds  in  the  neighbourhood.  The  light  be- 
came brighter  and  I  could  see  quite  distinctly  three 
shapes — one  in  the  centre  having  what  looked  like  out- 
spread wings,  the  other  two  were  not  so  large,  but 
were  quite  plainly  distinct  from  the  centre  one.  They 
appeared  to  have  a  long  loose  hanging  garment  of 
golden  tint,  and  they  were  above  the  German  line  fac- 
ing us. 

"We  stood  watching  them  for  about  three-quarters 
of  an  hour.  All  the  men  with  me  saw  them,  and  other 
men  came  up  from  other  groups  who  also  told  us  that 
they  had  seen  the  same  thing.  I  am  not  a  believer  in 
such  things,  but  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  we 
really  did  see  what  I  now  tell  you. 

"I  remember  the  day  because  it  was  a  day  of  terri- 
ble anxiety  for  us.  That  morning  the  Munsters  had 
had  a  bad  time  on  our  right  and  so  had  the  Scots 
Guards.  We  managed  to  get  to  the  wood  and  there  we 
barricaded  the  roads  and  remained  in  the  formation  I 
have  told  you.  Later  on  the  Uhlans  attacked  us  and  we 
drove  them  back  with  heavy  loss.  It  was  after  this 
engagement  when  we  were  dog-tired  that  the  vision  ap- 
peared to  us. 

"I  shall  never  forget  it  as  long  as  I  live.  I  lie  awake 
in  bed  and  picture  it  as  I  saw  it  that  night.  Of  my 
battalion  there  are  now  only  five  men  alive  besides  my- 
self, and  I  have  no  hope  of  ever  getting  back  to  the 


356  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

front.  I  have  a  record  of  fifteen  years'  good  service, 
and  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  make  a  fool  of  myself 
by  telling  a  story  merely  to  please  any  one." 

Our  author  obtained  further  interesting  informa- 
tion from  the  soldier  when  he  went  to  interview  him, 
especially  as  regards  the  impression  that  the  vision 
made  upon  the  other  men  in  his  regiment. 

* '  It  was  very  funny, ' '  he  said.  1 '  We  came  over  quiet 
and  still.  It  took  us  that  way.  We  didn't  know  what 
to  make  of  it.  And  there  we  all  were,  looking  up  at 
those  three  figures,  saying  nothing,  just  wondering, 
when  one  of  the  chaps  called  out,  'God's  with  us!'- 
and  that  kind  of  loosened  us.  Then  when  we  were  fall- 
ing in  for  the  march,  the  captain  said  to  us,  'Well, 
men,  we  can  cheer  up  now;  we've  got  Some  One  with 
us!'  And  that's  just  how  we  felt.  As  I  tell  you,  we 
marched  thirty-two  miles  that  night,  and  the  Germans 
didn't  fire  either  cannon  or  rifle  the  whole  way." 

Mr.  Begbie  inquired  of  the  lance-corporal  if  he  had 
met  any  of  the  men  who  saw  the  vision  since  he  had 
got  back  to  England.  He  stated  that  he  had  only  met 
one — a  sergeant  of  the  Scots  Guards  who  was  lying 
in  Netley  hospital,  and  added,  "He  remembers  it  just 
the  same  as  I  do."  "Of  course,"  he  continued,  "these 
chaps  in  here  won't  believe  it.  They  think  I  must  have 
dreamed  it,  but  the  sergeant  in  the  Scots  Guards  could 
tell  them.  I  have  never  seen  anything  like  it  before 
or  since — I  know  very  well  what  I  saw. ' ' 

Such  is  the  character  of  the  first-hand  evidence  which 
has  come  to  us  regarding  the  most  remarkable  re- 
ligious vision  of  the  war — "The  Angels  of  MODS." 
Some  see  in  this  merely  a  wide-spread  delusion ;  a  sys- 
tematic hallucination,  followed  by  an  eager  public 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      :jf>7 

credulity — a  species  of  toxic  delirium  followed  by  a 
form  of  popular  hysteria.  Yet  perhaps  the  case  caiinot 
be  dismissed  so  lightly  as  this ;  visions  of  varying;  char- 
acters were  undoubtedly  seen  by  many  soldiers  at  this 
time;  and  if  ever  the  men  of  earth  had  need  of  the 
hosts  of  heaven  to  help  them,  it  was  then!  Another 
view  of  the  case  might  perhaps  be  tenable — for  in- 
stance the  following,  communicated  by  a  New  Zealand- 
er  to  the  columns  of  the  Harbinger  of  Light  (Mel- 
bourne) : 

"Testimony  of  a  similar  character  has  poured  in 
ever  since  the  memorable  retreat  from  Mons,  when 
General  French's  'contemptible  little  army'  was 
saved  from  annihilation  by  what  many  people  are  con- 
vinced to  have  been  the  direct  intervention  of  powerful 
spiritual  forces.  We  know  of  no  reason  for  question- 
ing this  conclusion.  On  the  other  hand  there  is  abun- 
dant Biblical  and  other  evidence  which  supports  the 
occurrence  of  such  phenomena,  including  the  very  sig- 
nificant incident  in  relation  to  Elisha  and  'the  young 
man,'  when  the  latter,  on  having  his  spiritual  eyes 
opened — or,  as  we  say  in  these  modern  times,  after  he 
had  become  clairvoyant — saw  the  hillside  covered  with 
celestial  horsemen,  who  had  come  to  the  aid  of  the  hard- 
pressed  prophet. 

"The  spirit  world  is  a  greater  reality  and  much 
nearer  to  us  than  most  people  think,  and  the  emis- 
saries of  the  Most  High  keep  constant  watch  over  mun- 
dane affairs  and  unceasingly  direct  the  evolution  of 
the  human  race.  This  spiritual  truth  is  not  generally 
recognized  today,  but  the  time  is  coming  when  it  will 
be  universally  accepted,  and  mankind  will  be  com- 
pelled to  realize  it  is  literally  true  that  'the  angel  of 


358  PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR 

the  Lord  encampeth  round  them  that  fear  Him,  and 
delivereth  them.'  "* 

Whatever  the  ultimate  truth  regarding  these  "Vis- 
ions ' '  may  prove  to  be,  however,  it  is  certain  that,  from 
the  psychological  and  historical  points  of  view,  they 
deserve  careful  consideration  and  study;  and  it  is  be- 
cause of  these  reasons  that  I  have  deemed  them  worthy 
of  inclusion  in  this  book.  From  any  point  of  view— 
whether  they  be  regarded  as  a  species  of  remarkable 
hallucinatory  experiences,  or  as  a  direct  manifesta- 
tion of  the  spiritual  world — they  constitute  an  essen- 
tial historical  part  of  the  psychology  of  the  present 
war;  and,  as  such,  they  justify  their  insertion  in  this 
book,  and  particularly  in  this  Chapter. 

And  thus,  by  dream  and  vision, — by  deeds  of  heroism 
and  self-sacrifice, — has  the  soul  of  man  become  re- 
generated— has  a  great  Spiritual  quickening  and  re- 
vival spread  through  all  the  nations — for  nations  have 
become  regenerated  no  less  than  individuals. 

Indeed,  as  M.  Le  Bon  says — and  what  he  says  of 
France  applies  equally  to  the  soldiers  of  all  the  Allies, 
though  no  one  will  begrudge  France — bleeding  yet 
glorious — the  words  of  praise  he  bestows  upon  her  :— 

"France  will  no  doubt  emerge  regenerated  and  all 
the  stronger  from  the  present  tragedy,  for  the  heroic 
qualities  of  her  defenders  show  that  the  anarchy  which 
seemed  to  threaten  her  was  purely  superficial.  The 
dauntless  courage  of  our  young  men  is  a  consoling 
sight  to  the  wondering  eyes  of  us  who  behold  it.  They 
will  have  lived  through  the  most  prodigious  adventure 
in  history,  an  epoch  whose  grandeur  transcends  that 

*  A  few  additional  first-hand  cases  are  to  be  found  in  the  Rev. 
A.  A.  Boddy's  booklet — Real  Angels  at  Mons. 


SPIRITUAL  REVIVAL  AWAKENED      359 

of  the  most  far-famed  legends.  For  what  are  the  ex- 
ploits of  Homer's  warriors,  or  the  gallant  feats  of 
Charlemagne's  fabulous  companions,  or  the  combats 
of  paladins  and  magicians,  compared  with  the  gigantic 
struggles  at  whose  progress  the  world  looks  on 
amazed  ? 

"No  one  could  have  foreseen  the  marvellous  efflor- 
escence of  the  self -same  virtues  of  men  who  come  from 
the  most  widely  sundered  classes  of  society.     With- 
drawn from  their  tranquil  existence  on  the  farm,  in  the 
office,  the  workshop,  the  school,  or  even  the  palace,  they 
find  themselves  abruptly  transported  into  the  heart  of 
an  adventure  so  stupendous  and  impossible  that  only  in 
dreams  have  men  ever  had  glimpses  of  its  like.    Truly 
they  are  new  beings  whom  threatened  France  has  seen 
rise  up  in  her  defense;  being  created  by  a  rejuvenes- 
cence of  the  astral  soul,  which  sometimes  slumbers  but 
never  dies.    Sons  of  the  heroes  of  Tolbiac,  Bouvines, 
and  Marengo,  these  da*untless  fighters  felt  all  the  valour 
of  their  glorious  fathers  revive  within  them  at  their 
country's  first  call.    Plunged  into  a  hideous  inferno, 
they  have  often  spoken  heroic  words  such  as  history 
makes  immortal.    'Arise,  ye  dead!'  cried  the  last  sol- 
dier in  a  trench  surrounded  on  every  side,  to  his  wound- 
ed companions  who  had  been  laid  low  by  the  enemy's 
ni  a  chine-guns.    Greece  would  have  plaited  crowns  for 
that  man  and  sung  his  memory. 

"To  die  a  hero  in  a  noble  cause  is  an  enviable  lot 
for  one  who  has  believed  himself  destined  to  naught 
save  an  empty  and  monotonous  existence;  for  not  ac- 
cording to  length  of  days  is  life  worth  living,  but  ac- 
cording to  work  accomplished,  and  the  defenders  of 
the  sacred  soil  of  our  fathers,  the  handicrafts-men  of 
our  future,  they  who  have  forged  a  new  France  on  the 


anvil  of  Fate,  our  dead,  who  yet  are  immortal,  are  al- 
ready entered  into  the  pantheon  of  those  demi-gods 
whom  the  nations  adore  and  whom  the  hand  of  Time 
himself  can  no  more  harm." 


INDEX 


D'Albe,  Prof.  Fournier,  103-4. 
Aksakof,  M.  Alexander,  135. 
Angels  of  Mons,  343-58. 
Apparitions,  124-25. 
Argon,   118. 
Artillery,  fire,  59. 
Atrocities,  9-19. 

Attack,  psychology  of,  62-85,  pas- 
sim. 
Auer,  D.  E.  Murray,  86;  87. 

Balfour,  Hon.  A.  J.,  272. 
Balfour,  Hon.  G.  W.,  123. 
Barrett,  Sir  William  F.,  252;  277- 

80. 

Begbie,  Harold,  353-54. 
Bernhardi,  25. 
Bevan,  Dr.  F.,  197-98. 
Blondis,  Victor,  337-39. 
Blood,  significance  of,  83. 
Boddy,  Kev.  A.  A.,  358. 
Bozzano,  Dr.,   149. 
Brittain,  Mrs.  Annie,  275;   277. 
Butcher,  Professor,  123. 

Campbell,  Miss  Phyllis,  345-51. 
Cantonments,  psychology  of,  42-51. 
Chapman,  John  Jay,  330-32. 
Cheves,  B.  P.,  312-18. 
Colour,  effects  of,  91-3. 
Comrade  in  White,  342-43. 
Cooper,  Sir  William  E.,  272. 
Courage,  psychology  of,  44-46;  76- 

79. 
Crile,  Dr.  G.   W.,  viii;    8-9;    18; 


28;    31-32;    58;    79-80;    83;    85- 

86;   88-89;   93-94. 
Crookes,   Sir    William,    108;    252; 

272. 

Cross-Correspondences,   123-24. 
Crowd,  psychology  of,  32-36. 
Cure,  methods  of,  90-93. 

Davis,  A.  J.,  228-35. 

Dawson,  Lieut.  Coningsby,  97. 

Death,  subject  of,  103-4;  111-15. 

Death,  what  happens  at,  243  et  gqq. 

Delboauf,  Prof.,  138. 

Dewar,  Lord,  272. 

Donnelly,  Corporal  Hal  B.,  65-72. 

Dowding,  Private  Thomas,  318-26. 

Dowsing,  131-33. 

Doyle,    Sir   A.    Conan,    108;    252; 

326. 
Dreams,  of  soldiers,  88-90. 

Eeden,  Dr.  F.  Van,  139. 

Fatigue,  93-95. 
Fear,  psychology  of,  52-53. 
Flammarion,  Camillc,  190;  220-23. 
French,  Field  Marshal  Lord,  164- 

65. 

Freud,  Dr.  Sig.,  134-35. 
Frightfulness,    psychology    of,    20, 

23. 


Gros,  Dr.,  94. 
Group-photograph,  311-18. 


361 


362 


INDEX 


Gurney,  Edmund,  223-24. 
Guthrie,  Mrs.,  208-16. 

Heroism,  psychology  of,  76. 
Hill,  J.  Arthur,  207;  216-20. 
Hodgson,  Dr.   B.,   307. 
Hotchner,  Mrs.  Marie  Russak,  173- 

75. 
Hyslop,    Prof.    J.    H.,    108;    114; 

139-40. 

James,  Prof.  William,   108;    115; 

126. 
Jenkins,  Rev.   Ernest,   252-53. 

Kelly,  Sapper,  132-33. 
Kinetic  system,  31. 
King,  Dr.  John,  140. 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  39;   105. 
Kitchener,  Lord,  159-60. 

Lahy,  M.,  60. 

Leaf,  Dr.  Horace,  326. 

Le  Bon,  Dr.  Gustav,  viii;  24;   26- 

27;  33-34;  358-60. 
Leonard,  Mrs.  Osborne,  274. 
Leuba,  Prof.  James  H.,  115-16. 
Lewis,  John,   284-87. 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  vii;    108;    246; 

251;    252;    262-69;    272;    280; 

306-18. 
Lombroso,  Prof.,  137;   138. 

Machen,  Arthur,  344;  351. 
MacKenna,  Dr.  Robert,  113. 
Maeterlinck,  M.,  viii;   81-82;    138- 

39;    257-58;    333-34;   336-37. 
Materialism,  102-3;   117. 
Matha  of  Kremna,  145-48. 
Matla,  Dr.,  139. 
Meader,  John  R.,  103. 
Mediumship,  question  of,  108-11. 
Miyatovich,  Count,  145-48. 
Mobilization,  effects  of,  30-32, 


Monoideism,  63;  84. 
Mons,  Angels  of,  343-58. 
Morselli,  Prof.,  137. 
Mountsier,  Robert,  287-95. 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  106;   108;   149; 
307;   308;   311. 

Natural  phenomena,  340-42. 
Newhall,  Lieut.,  56-57. 

Ochorowicz,   Dr.   J.,   136. 
Owen,  R.  D.,  201-7. 

Pain,  psychology  of,  85-86. 
Pear,  T.  H.,  97. 
Pemberton,  Max,  326. 
Personality,  in  war,  36-39. 
Peters,  A.  Vout,  273. 
Photophobia,   90. 
Piper,  Mrs.  L.  E.,  307. 
Plato,  116. 

Pole,  Tudor,  318  et  sgq. 
Post-mortem  letters,  122-23. 
Premonitions,  theories  of,  149-50. 
Premonitions,   cases   of,    149-71. 
Prosser,  H.  Kemp,  91-93. 
Psychical   Research,    3-4;    et   pas- 
sim. 

Ramsey,  Professor,  118. 
Rayleigh,  Lord,  118. 
Raymond  (Lodge),  306-18. 
Raynor,  Mrs.  Ethel,  viii. 
Renan,   E.,    251. 
Richet,  Prof.   Charles,  5;   142. 
Robbins,   Miss,   307. 

Sabatier,  M.  Paul,  39-41;  327-28. 
Salter,  Mrs.  H.  de  G.,  162-63;  175; 

186. 

Schiller,  Prof.  F.  C.  S.,  104;  142. 
Schrenck-Notzing,  Dr.,  133-34. 
Shell  Shock,  86-93;  97. 


INDEX 


363 


Shirley,  Ralph,  viii;    132-33;    141; 

143-45;   207;  324;   344. 
Hidgwick,  Mrs.  Henry,  149. 
de  Sivetochowski,  Dr.  G.,  91-92. 
Sleep,  psychology  of,  93-95. 
Smith,  Dr.  G.  Elliot,  97. 
Solovovo,  Count,   135. 
Spinoza,  104. 

Stead,  Miss  Estelle,  150;  295-302. 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  127. 
Stuart,  Rosa,  viii;  150;   172;   195. 

Tardieu,  M.  A.,  142-43. 
Telepathy,     question     of,     120-21; 
217. 


Tennyson,  261. 
Thurston,  Herbert,  142. 
Trenches,  psychology  of  the,  51-60. 
Turner,  Gen.  Sir  Alfred,  293-95. 
Twins,  sympathy   between,  198-99. 

Verrall,  Dr.  A.  W.,  123. 
Verrall,  Mrs.,  308. 

Wallace,  Dr.   A.  R.,  108. 
Whitty,  Michael,  302-6. 

Zelst,  Z.  van,  139. 

Zones,  civil  and  military,  41-42. 


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